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THE 

:;^yv ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH 

ANNIVERSARY 



Granting of the Charter of the Town of 

Plymouth, New Hampshire 

July 15, 1763 



JULY 13-14-15, 1913 



Arranged by the General Committee 




1763-1913 








General Committee 
Charles J. Gould. Treasurer Mrs. Bessie F. Pease, Secretary 

KoHN Keniston, Chairman 
Mrs. S. Katherine Adams Edward A. Chase 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

Introduction — John Keniston * . . . . 7 

Committees 11 

Sunday Service and Sermon 12 

Historical Exhibit — Eleanor J. Clark 20 

Historical Lecture — Rev. C. W. Wilson 23 

Civic Parade 29 

Historical and Literary Exercises: 

Introductory Remarks — Hon. A. F. Wentworih .... 31 
Address on the Unveiling of the Holmes Plymouth 

Academy Memorial Tablet — Mrs. Lorin Webster . . 32 
Glimpses of School Life in Plymouth Fifty Years Ago — 

Prof. Henry TVyatt 34 

Addresses : 

Rev. William Hayes Ward, D. D 39 

Rev. Cyrus Richardson, D. D 42 

Major Frank W. Russell 46 

Letters : 

Rev. William Jewett Tucker, D. D 49 

Ex-Senator Henry W. Blair 51 

Poem — Rev. Arthur Norman Ward 55 

Pageant 

Committees 58 

Description of Pageant — Caroline W. Mudgett .... 59 

Music 65 

Cast of Characters 65 

Band Concert — Keniston Band 68 

Fireworks — Charles J. Gould 70 

Financial Report 72 

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ILLUSTRATIONS. facing 

Page 
Pemigewasset River Frontispiece "^ 

General Committee 3 *- 

Rev. Nathan Ward, Pulpit, Communion Set 14 ^ 

Sunday Service, Webster Tavern 15 <. 

Exhibit: 

Clock, Pewter, Loom, China 20 

Attic, Fireplace 21 ^ 

Lecture 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29 

State Normal School 32 

Boulder, Holmes Plymouth Academy 33 

Parade 36, 37, 44, 45, 52, 53, 54, 55 -- 

Decorated Houses 50, 51 ^ 

Pageant 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63 , 

Pageant Audience, High School 68 

Band 69 



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INTRODUCTION. 

While some may have had an intuition that the one hundred 
and fiftieth anniversary of the granting of the Plymouth charter 
might be appropriately celebrated, the idea did not begin to take 
on any semblance of life until the warrant for the annual March 
meeting in 1912 was posted. 

Article No. 20 read as follows : — 

"To see what action the town will take in regard to celebrating 
the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the granting of its 
charter. ' ' 

It was voted as follows : — 

Resolved, "That a committee of five be appointed by the Se- 
lectmen during the month of April, 1912, to consist of three men 
and two women ; committee is to report to the citizens of this town 
through the Plymouth Record in February, 1913, to prepare and 
cause the necessary articles to be inserted in the next annual 
town meeting warrant, so that action upon the subject can be 
taken at that time. ' ' 

The selectmen under date of August 8, 1912, issued the follow- 
ing appointment : — 

To John Keniston, Rev. Clinton W. Wilson, Edward A. Chase, 
Bessie Fox and 8. Katherine Adams of Plymouth in the 
County of Grafton: 

Agreeable to a resolution adopted at the last annual town 
meeting that a committee of five be appointed by the selectmen, 
to consist of tliree men and two women, and that said committee 
be authorized and instructed to formulate a plan for the celebra- 
tion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the granting 
of the charter of Plymouth to the original proprietors and set- 
tlers thereof on July 15th, 1913, and that said committee is di- 
rected to report to the citizens of this town through the Plymouth 
Record in February, 1913, and is further directed to prepare and 
cause the necessary articles to be inserted in the next annual 

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8 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

town meeting warrant, so that action upon the subject can be 
taken at that time. 

Whereas, we, the subscribers, have confidence in your ability 
and integrity to perform the duties of said office, we do hereby 
appoint you the said John Keniston, Rev. Clinton W. "Wilson, 
Edward A. Chase, Bessie Fox and S. Katherine Adams as mem- 
bers of said committee. 

Given under our hand this 8th day of August, 1912. 

F. F. Blake, 
P. H. Crawford, 
H. W. Rogers, 
Selectmen of Plymouth. 

The committee made sure that the following special statute 
was passed : — 

Be it enacted hy the Senate and House of Representatives in 
General Court convened: 

Section 1. The town of Plymouth is hereby authorized to 
raise and appropriate a sum not exceeding three hundred dol- 
lars for the purpose of observing the one hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary of the incorporation and settlement of the town of 
Plymouth. 

Sect. 2. This act shall take effect upon its passage. 

Approved February 13, 1913. 



PLYMOUTH CHARTER CELEBRATION. 

To the citizens of the town of Plymouth: 

The selectmen appointed the undersigned according to a vote 
taken at the 1912 annual meeting. Considering that Fourth of 
July celebrations have not received any special attention for 
many years, that the Old Home Day gatherings have never oc- 
curred in this town, and that some expressions of interest have 
been made by some of the citizens, we are of the opinion that an 
elaborate celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary 
of the granting of the charter to the original proprietors of 
Plymouth will be wise and acceptable. We suggest that the 
event be made not only a gala day, but instructive in the town's 
history to the children and a memorable occasion for all. 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 9 

In order that the town may legally provide means we have 
secured the passage of an act authorizing the raising of money 
for the purpose. An article has been inserted in the warrant 
for the next March meeting, so that the voters can act upon the 
subject. If anything is to be attempted the celebration must be 
organized and determined upon promptly, because four months 
before July 15, 1913, the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary 
date, is a very short time in which to properly prepare for the 
event. 

The committee recommends the following as appropriate and 
we trust also instructive. 

An illustrated historical lecture to be given to the school chil- 
dren some afternoon during memorial week in May, to be re- 
peated in the evening for their elders. On Sunday, July 13, an 
open air union service in which it is desired that all the citizens 
and religious organizations will participate and attend. During 
Monday and Tuesday, July 14 and 15, an exhibition of the 
antiquities and curios connected with the town's history, the 
historical lecture to be repeated on Monday evening, July 14. 

On Tuesday, July 15, pageant in the morning, addresses and 
other exercises in the afternoon and band concert and fireworks 
in the evening. It is hoped that this day's exercises will be so 
attractive that work and business will want to pause and give the 
entire day to reminiscence and a joyous home coming, appropri- 
ate to the event to be celebrated. 

"We also recommend that a medal be prepared that can be sold 
at a small price. We have received designs that are appropriate. 
It is a common custom with other towns on such occasions. 

The success of the occasion will depend entirely upon the 
hearty participation by all the citizens and many will be needed 
to take active part in one place or another in order to make the 
pageant and other features the equal of those in other towns. 

Generally these celebrations arrange for sources of income, and 
some are money making enterprises. We anticipate that this 
town will prefer to be as free and open hearted as possible. 

Consequently the voters need to provide financial means as 
liberally as allowable or else give up the idea. 

The committee will report at the annual meeting a detailed 
scheme that we think will provide for its proper organization, 



10 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

provided, the voters decide to adopt the plan of celebration 

proposed. 

John Keniston, 
Clinton W. Wilson, 
Bessie Fox, 
Edward A. Chase, 
S. Katherine Adams, 

Committee. 

The article inserted in the town warrant for the annual March 
meeting of 1913 was as follows : — 

Article 13. To see if the town will vote to celebrate the One 
hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the granting of its charter, 
to raise or appropriate money for the same, to choose committees 
and take any other action in regard to the subject. 

It was voted to raise $300 and committees were chosen to carry 
out the celebration as proposed. The General Committee as ap- 
pointed by the selectmen remained the same, with the exception 
of Rev. C. W. Wilson removed to Lancaster, whose place was 
substituted by Mr. C. J. Gould. The names of the committees 
will appear elsewhere. 

The plan was more comprehensive than realized and although 
the proposed outlines called for much larger appropriations than 
were available, yet by the hearty cooperation of the people and 
many generous gifts, the committee was able to carry out its 
recommendations and even enlarge the scope of the celebration 
beyond what the most hopeful had desired. 

The Committee is indebted to the Dalton Studio, J. Edward 
Boynton, George G. Clark, Jennie Brown, Novelty Studio, Moon 
Photograph Company, Dr. H. 11. Lamson, for taking and loaning 
the photographs used in this book. 

Undoubtedly 3,500 people attended the pageant and not less 
than 5,000 attended the band concert and witnessed the fireworks. 

The weather conditions were perfect and the good nature and 
conduct of all were the best that any one could wish. No acci- 
dents occurred to mar the pleasure or safety of anyone and when 
the last note was sounded and the last bomb was fired, the face of 
the town clock, illuminated for the first time, looked upon an 
immense throng of delighted and satisfied people, whether citi- 
zens or visitors. 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. U 

COMMITTEES CHOSEN BY THE TOWN. 

General Committee. 
John Keniston, Chairman. 
Charles J. Gould, Treasurer. Edward A. Chase. 
Mrs. Bessie F. Pease, fifecre^ari/. Mrs. S. Katherine Adams. 

Historical Exhibit Committee. 
Mrs. S. Katherine Adams, Chairman. 
Mrs. Davis B. Keniston. Miss Millicent Weeks. 

Historical Lecture. 
Edward A. Chase, Chairman. 
Herbert H. Lamson. Charles L. Wallace. 

Pageant Committee. 
Mrs. Bessie F. Pease, Chairman. 
Mrs. John E. Smith. Mrs. George R. Foster. 

Miss WilhelminaR. Keniston. George R. Foster. 
John Keniston. J. Frank Gould. 

Fire Works Committee. 
Charles J. Gould, Chairman. 
Edwin J. Foster. John F. Maynard. 

SUB-COMMITTEES APPOINTED BY THE GENERAL 
COMMITTEE. 

Finance Committee. 
Charles J. Gould, Treasurer. Moody P. Gore. 

Publicity Committee. 
Edward A. Chase. Charles C. Wright. 

William J. Randolph. 

Civic Parade Committee. 
Edward A. Chase. Charles J. Gould. 

John Keniston. William M. Peppard. 

Albert F. Burtt. Albert M. Rand. 

Moses A. Batchelder. Alvin F. Wentworth. 

William R. Coffey. Fred S. Rowe. 



ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION. 

SUNDAY, JULY 13, 11 A. M. 

UNION RELIGIOUS SERVICE. 

Pkogram, 

Praise ye the Father Gounod 

Keniston Band. 

Doxology — ' ' Old Hundred " The Congregation 

Invocation Rev. Cyrus Richardson, D. D. 

Scripture, Psalm CIII. 

Rev. a. L. Smith, D. D. 

Soprano Solo — The Homeland Hanscome 

Miss Wilhelmina R. Keniston. 

Prayer Rev. William Hayes Ward, D. D. 

Trio, Lift thine eyes, from "Elijah" Mendelssohn 

Ladies' Chorus. 

Sermon, delivered at Plymouth, N. H., July 4, 1825, in commemo- 
ration of American Independence, by Rev. Jonathan Ward, 
son of the first settled pastor. Rev. Nathan Ward, on the 
text. Psalm cxxiv : 2-3. 

Read by Rev. B. A. Dumm, Ph. D. 

National Hymn — "America" The Congregation 

Benediction Rev. G. B. Kambour 

Paraphrase — "The Lost Chord" Sullivan 

Keniston Band. 

The outdoor Sunday service, held on the Common at the center 
of the town, sounded the keynote of the whole celebration. 
Thankfulness for a past so rich in blessings was expressed in 
music, prayer and song. 

The day was an ideal one of cool breezes and sunshine, and as 
the hour for the service approached, the streets were thronged 

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CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 13 

with people making their way to the union meeting. They filled 
the seats to overflowing, and sat in wagons and automobiles on 
the west side of the Common. Even the great touring cars of 
through travelers to the mountains, which had right of way on 
the east side, paused to enjoy the quiet scene. 

It was a reverent throng, — townspeople, farmers and their 
families, visitors from neighboring towns and homecomers from 
many states. Dr. William Hayes Ward of New York, who made 
the prayer, was a direct descendant in the third generation from 
Rev. Nathan Ward, who came with the settlers in 1764. The 
sermon, written by a later minister, Rev. Jonathan Ward, son of 
Nathan Ward, and first delivered on July 4, 1825, was now read 
from a pulpit which was a part of the original one in the meeting 
house which stood at the top of Ward's Hill. The program has 
been given and the sermon follows : 

SEEMON. 
Psalm CXXIV: 2, 3. 

If it had not 'been the Lord, who was on our side, when men rose up 
against us; then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was 
Jcindled against us. 

It is uncertain whether the Psalmist here alludes to some particular eveoit, 
or not, when his nation was exposed to imminent danger from their enemies. 
The passage now read will apply to various seasons of peril and distress in 
their history. It is strikingly applicable to their preservation in Egypt, and 
their deliverance when pursued by the mighty host of Pharaoh. Had they 
not then been protected by the Almighty arm of Jehovah, their enemies 
would have swallowed them up quick. And after they were settled in the 
land of Canaan they were often attacked by their surrounding enemies, who 
sought their ruin, and who would have swallowed them up, had not 
the Lord been on their side, and protected them. 

And may not we, with great propriety, adopt the declaration of the 
Psalmist in the text in reference to our own nation? Is it not strikingly 
true, as it respects the United States? There is a remarkable similarity in 
various respects, between the people of Israel, and our own nation, and 
especially New England. The children of Israel were delivered from the 
yoke of oppression. And so were the first settlers of this land. Israel was 
conducted to a distant and strange land and settled in it. And so were our 
ancestors. The original inhabitants were driven out before the children of 
Israel, to make way for them. So were the original inhabitants of this 
land. On the arrival of the first settlers in New England, they were in- 
formed by the natives, that a very mortal disease had, a few years before, 
prevailed among them, and swept off the greater part of the original 



14 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSABY 

inhabitants. The children of Israel left Egypt, and settled in the land of 
Canaan, that they might serve the Lord without molestation, and worship 
Him according to His own appointment. And for the same object our 
ancestors left England, and came into this land. God raised up for the 
children of Israel a leader, endued with extraordinary wisdom, and eminently 
qualified for the work assigned him of delivering them from oppression, 
conducting them through the wilderness, establishing for them laws, and 
securing their liberty and independence. And he raised up a Washington 
to deliver this nation from oppression, to protect our rights, to achieve our 
independence, to secure to us equal liberty, and a free and most excellent 
constitution of government. 

The interposition of Heaven in our favor has been truly striking; and we 
may, with the utmost propriety, exclaim in the words of our text, ' ' If it 
had not been the Lord, who was on our side, when men rose up against us; 
then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against 
us. ' ' This is manifest from the declarations of scripture and from facts. 

1. It is manifest from the declarations of scripture. 

The Bible clearly teaches the entire dependence of creatures upon their 
great Creator for all their blessings. We are expressly taught that ' ' from 
Him comes down every good and perfect gift ; ' ' that, ' ' when the young^ 
ravens cry, they receive their meat from God ; ' ' and that He supplies the 
wants of ' ' every living thing. ' ' He does, indeed, employ means and instru- 
ments in accomplishing His kind designs. Still, however, we are taught 
to view Him as the great and original source of all good. Though mankind 
is extremely prone to look no farther than to second causes, and to ascribe 
their privileges and enjoyments wholly to their own wisdom and efforts, or 
to the instrumentality of others, yet we are, in the word of God, taught a 
very different lesson. We are there taught, when contemplating our bless- 
ings, to say, ' ' not iinto MS, not unto us, but unto thy name be all the 
praise. ' ' We are there told that ' ' God is our defence, a very present help 
in time of trouble, ' ' and are instructed to ascribe all our deliverances to 
Him, whether individual or national. 

2. To facts. 

The history of this country will afford a striking illustration of the 
text in application to our own nation. And it will be illustrated by anterior 
events, as well as those of the Revolution, by which our independence was 
secured. Repeatedly was the country upon the very brink of ruin. The 
Indians at different times planned the utter extirpation of the English. If 
they had made the attempt soon after their arrival, when they were few and 
feeble, nothing but a miracle would have saved them. But God mercifully 
disposed the savages generally to live with them on terms of peace and 
friendship for a number of years, till they had extended their settlements, 
and greatly increased in strength and numbers. 

A plan was indeed laid by the Indians for the destruction of the English 
in Virginia fifteen years after their arrival. It was laid vsdth great secrecy 
and arrangements made for its execution, and for the indiscriminate massacre 
of all the inhabitants. The Indians, having been friendly, were admitted 
without suspicion among the whites. And their design was to go at a. 







,4 



Pen and ink ukawixc; of 

Rev. Nathan Ward 

(Drawn by himself) 



Pulpit used at Union Religious 
Service, Sunday, July 
13, 1913 




Photo by J. E. Boynton 

First Communion Set of the Congregational Church 






//•' 








Webster Tavern 

The log shed is supposed to be Col. David Webster's log cabin, where the first 

sermon was preached May 19, 1764, by the Rev. Nathan Ward, 

the first settled minister 




Photo by J. E. Boynton. 



Sunday Service July 13, 1913 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 15 

concerted time into all their settlements and fall upon them unsuspected, 
and, when wholly unprepared to defend themselves, to murder them all. 
The plot was discovered the evening before by an Indian and was in con- 
sequence partially defeated, though three hundred and forty-seven men, 
women and children were massacred. 

But in New England the most systematic, deep laid, and dangerous plots 
were formed, and the most persevering attempts made, for the utter exter- 
mination of the English. In 1636, sixteen years after the arrival of the 
first settlers at Plymouth, a formidable effort was made to exterminate the 
English by the Pequots, a powerful tribe of Indians. This was, however, 
defeated after a short contest. 

But the most extensive and dangerous conspiracy among the Indians 
against the English was formed by King Philip, a powerful sachem of very 
superior mental endowments, and of great skill and courage in war. ' ' He 
was," says a distinguished writer, "from the year 1670 till 1675, when 
hostilities actually commenced, secretly preparing for the war, by obtaining 
arms and negotiating with the neighboring tribes. ' ' And the same writer 
observes that he produced ' ' a combination of Indians so formidable, and a 
war so bloody, as to threaten the very existence of all New England. ' ' He 
engaged in the contest almost all the Indians through New England who 
were numerous and powerful, and who ' ' spread themselves, ' ' says a writer 
of those times, ' ' like grasshoppers all over the country. ' ' Their mode of 
warfare rendered them a peculiarly dangerous enemy, and the war with 
them uncommonly desolating and destructive. They approached the English 
settlements secretly, and often in the night; and burned their dwellings 
and killed or led into captivity the inhabitants. The country being then 
new, the settlements scattered and defenceless, and much woods and thick 
swamps remaining, these circumstances favored the English. The Indians 
were for a time successful and destroyed many towns, and boasted that they 
should burn Boston. 

But though God corrected the inhabitants of the country severely he did 
not give them ' ' over to the will of the enemies, ' ' but mercifully interposed 
for their protection, preservation and deliverance. Divisions, defection, and 
mortal diseases among the savages greatly weakened them, and tended to 
bring the war to a favorable termination. The arm of Jehovah was extended 
over his people, and his providence often signally interposed for their 
deliverance. And "had not the Lord been on their side, when the enemy 
rose up against them, they would have swallowed them up. ' ' 

But the words of our text were most strikingly illustrated in the Revolu- 
tionary War and the events which led to the establishment of our national 
independence. No person can impartially review the history of those times 
without being convinced that, "if the Lord had not been on our side," we 
should have been swallowed up, or subdued. Who could have imagined that 
these feeble colonies could have contended successfully with one of the most 
powerful nations in the world, when that nation was in the zenith of its 
power and glory? It had a few years before triumphantly terminated a 
war with France, in the course of which it had wrested from her the most 
of her American possessions, — the Canadas, Nova Scotia, Louisiana, and 



16 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

several of her West India Islands. In this war the colonies had borne a 
distinguished part, had incurred very heavy expenses, and lost many men, 
one third of the effective men of Massachusetts being in the service in the 
campaign of 1758. From these calamities they had not recovered vrhen the 
war of the Eevolution commenced. How amazingly unequal was the contest 
between Great Britain and her American colonies ! The former had a power- 
ful fleet and veteran army, inured to the fatigues of war and used to 
victory. She was in possession of Canada, Nova Scotia, and the frontier 
posts, and in alliance with the Indian tribes generally, and had them under 
her influence. 

But the colonies were then weak and impoverished; had no regular army 
or navy; were very destitute of military and naval stores; had an extensive 
frontier and seacoast much exposed without means of defence, and were 
divided among themselves. The governors of the Provinces, and many of 
the other officers, were dependent upon the crown, and adhered to the royal 
cause, so that the government, at the commencement of the Revolution, was 
divided and distracted, and could not act with concert or energy. And 
though the most of the people were probably friendly to the liberties of 
their country, yet many imagined it would be in vain to resist the mighty 
power of Great Britain, and thought it more prudent to accede to such terms 
of accommodation as they could obtain. They were, therefore, unwilling 
to risk their all in such a doubtful, and, as they supposed, hopeless contest, 
Hence arose a division in the country which greatly weakened the cause of 
freedom. There was besides, in the Southern and Middle States, a vast 
number of slaves, being in many parts much more numerous than the whites, 
upon whom no dependence could be placed and who might become dangerous 
enemies. 

In such a situation, how unprepared were the colonies to contend with 
such a power as Great Britain! No wonder then, that many thought they 
had better yield the points in dispute, which were at first more about 
principles than any oppressive acts of the British government, the latter 
contending that they had a right to impose taxes upon the colonies, which 
the colonies denied, as they were not represented in the British parliament. 
And the acts of the latter, at first complained of, would have been submitted 
to, had they not involved the principle which was considered so dangerous 
to the liberties of the country. 

But Heaven had ordained that these then colonies should be free and 
independent, and had fixed the time at that early period. The contest must 
therefore begin and terminate successfully for America, notwithstanding all 
the formidable obstacles in the way. God designed here to begin the 
emancipation of the nations of the earth from civil bondage, and to give 
them an example of self-government, of the enjoyment of equal rights, 
and of unexampled national prosperity and happiness; to prepare an asylum 
for the oppressed of other nations, and a people signally to aid in evangeliz- 
ing the heathen, and accomplishing His great designs of benevolence and 
mercy towards a lost and ruined world. America, therefore, notwithstanding 
her weakness, must triumph and be free. For ' ' the Lord of Hosts, the Lord 
strong and mighty, ' ' had purposed it. And could man, could the most 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 17 

powerful nations, defeat His designs, when He could cause ' ' one to chase a 
thousand, and tivo to put ten thousand to flight?" Nerved by His almighty 
arm, the feeble, "out of weakness, were made strong, waxed valiant in 
fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. ' ' 

Every one must be convinced that the British were able to have sent a 
force sufficient to put down opposition and terminate the contest at once. 
But the government of Great Britain seemed to hold the power of the 
colonies to make any effectual resistance to the mother country in the 
utmost contempt. Before hostilities began, a military commander who had 
served in America in the late French war declared in parliament ' ' that, 
with five regiments of infantry, he would undertake to go through the 
country, and drive the inhabitants from one end of the continent to the 
other. ' ' And after the commencement of hostilities, another made a similar 
declaration. And though others, well acquainted with the spirit and ability 
of the Americans, assured the government that, in their coercive measures, 
they would meet with the most serious, determined and persevering oppo- 
sition, yet a strange infatuation seemed to have seized the British govern- 
ment, and they appeared to act upon the supposition that only a handful of 
men would be necessary to put down opposition, and enforce submission to 
all their acts, however arbitrary. This gave the colonies opportunity to act 
with more deliberation, union, decision and effect, to collect and concentrate 
their forces, and to call into operation their resources; taught them their 
own strength and trained them to the art of war, and inspired them with 
courage and resolution and the hope of ultimate success. 

But a powerful naval force to harass the seacoast and several armies, 
landed in different parts of the country, at the commencement of the contest, 
would have so distressed, distracted, disheartened, divided and weakened the 
colonies, that the cause of liberty must, to all human appearance, inevitably 
have been lost. But God "turned their counsel into foolishness," and 
inspired the friends of their country and of the rights of man with wisdom 
and firmness, and by His powerful arm shielded us, and suffered not those, 
who rose up against us, to swallow us up ; and upheld the nation through the 
long and arduous struggle and, finally, conducted it to triumph, to peace, 
and to independence. 

EEFLECTIONS. 

1. We learn from the subject our unspeakable obligations as a nation to 
the Most High. 

There is no other people under heaven so greatly distinguished as the 
people of these United States. No other nation enjoys such rich privileges 
and blessings. And no other nation in the world has experienced such signal 
interpositions of divine Providence in its favor. The history of this country 
from its first settlement is a history of remarkable providences. 

With wonder and admiration may we trace the movements of the little 
band, who first landed on the rock of Plymouth, and in New England laid 
the cornerstone of this mighty edifice. They had been driven by persecu- 
tion from their native land to Holland, whence they sailed for the New 
World, to erect, among savages, an altar to Him, who, to them, was ' ' the 
2 



18 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVEESARY 

wiiknown God." Their object in coming three thousand miles into a 
dreary wilderness was not wealth or political distinction, but liberty and 
religion. They could not rationally expect, and did not expect, on these 
uncultivated and inhospitable shores to enjoy ease and worldly greatness 
and grandeur. But they expected to be strangers and pilgrims in this 
strange land; and came here to suffer and serve God and enjoy unmolested 
the ordinances of the gospel and the consolations of religion; to secure and 
transmit to their children, civil and religious freedom, and the uncorrupted 
institutions of Christianity, and train them up for heaven. 

At first a few scattered settlements skirted the Atlantic, and all behind 
was one unbroken, dreary wilderness, to the western ocean. But now the 
wilderness, to a vast extent, has been subdued and become as the garden of 
the Lord. The American settlements are extending, the tide of emigration 
is rolling on to the West and the country is rapidly increasing in popula- 
tion and wealth. Our liberty and independence are secured and established 
upon a firm basis. We have the wisest and best constitution, and a govern- 
ment organized according to the purest principles of rational liberty. We 
have numerous, well-endowed and flourishing literary institutions where 
our children may be trained for usefulness, respectability and happiness. 
We enjoy religious liberty, the pure ordinances of the gospel, and the richest 
means of religion. Very numerous benevolent societies and charitable in- 
stitutions have been formed, with the design to impart relief to the indigent 
and distressed ; to send the gospel and the Bible to the destitute ; to dissem- 
inate Christian knowledge; to promote intellectual, moral and spiritual 
improvement ; to elevate the character, and to save the soul. These societies 
and institutions are diffusing a benign influence through the country. And, 
with these various and rich mercies, we enjoy peace, security, general health,, 
plenty, and unexampled prosperity. And for all these distinguished and 
invaluable privileges and blessings, we are indebted to the God of Heaven.. 
How great, then, are our obligations to the Most High ! Hence 

2. We ought to distinguish ourselves by our obedience and fidelity in 
His service. 

As God has exalted us ' ' in name and in honour, ' ' and by our superior 
privileges above every other nation under heaven, we ought to be an 
eminently devoted and pious people. We ought gratefully to acknowledge 
Him as the bountiful giver of all our mercies, and sincerely enquire ' ' what 
we shall render to Him for all His benefits?" We should avoid, and 
decidedly discountenance, all those immoral practices by which God is dis- 
honored and provoked, which are a "reproach to any people," and ruinous 
to their prosperity and true interest. And we should conscientiously,, 
sedulously and unitedly practice that ' ' righteousness, which exalteth a 
nation. ' ' And we should, especially, endeavor to extend the blessings and 
privileges, which we enjoy, to others; and more particularly to the Africans 
and Indian tribes on our own continent, and within our borders. We owe to 
them a heavy debt; and a heavier debt to divine justice for our criminal 
treatment of them. And payment vvdll most surely be demanded by the holy 
God, unless we endeavor to cancel the debt, by repairing the injuries done- 
them. 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 19 

And let us strive, not to destroy them, or make them wretched, but to 
extend to them the blessings of civilization and Christianity and the rights 
of man; to raise them from their state of degradation and wretchedness, and 
to make them * ' fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. ' ' 

3. We may learn that we ought to hold the fathers of New England in 
high estimation. Though we ought to be careful not to idolize any fellow- 
mortals, however great, eminent, useful or good, yet we should give ' ' honor 
to whom honor is due. ' ' And it is eminently due to our pious and venerable 
ancestors. For to them, under God, are we indebted for all our privileges 
and blessings. 

Though the fathers of New England were but men, they were men eminent 
for learning and piety. And they used great care to promote learning, 
morality and religion. Amidst all their poverty, hardships and sufferings, 
they early adopted measures for the establishment of literary institutions, 
and, only sixteen years after they first landed at Plymouth, they founded 
the college at Cambridge. 

They laid the foundation of our literary, religious and civil institutions. 
To their wisdom and integrity, firmness and resolution, patience and per- 
severance, are we indebted, under God, for our correct moral habits, our noble 
institutions, our liberty, prosperity and rising glory. We ought, therefore, 
to hold them in high estimation, and remember them with gratitude. 

4. The subject teaches us how to celebrate our national independence. 
Our deliverence was wrought, our independence achieved, and our liberty 

secured by an Almighty arm. For "had not the Lord been on our side, 
when men rose up against us, they would have swallowed us up quick." 
When, therefore, we celebrate our national birthday, we should remember 
that God has given us our national existence, and all our precious privileges, 
and should with gratitude commemorate His divine goodness. 

5. That any way of celebrating the day, which would be dishonorary to 
God, or offensive in his sight, must be highly improper. 

To spend it in rioting, in intemperance, or in dissipating amusements, 
which are calculated to banish all serious reflection and sense of the divine 
goodness, and of obligation to the Most High, must be peculiarly offensive 
in the sight of Heaven, and altogether unreasonable and improper. Such 
things may now be justified, and pleaded for, but, in the great day, will 
appear in their true light, and will then find no advocates. 

Though God has granted us liberty, he has given us no liberty to sin 
against him, and abuse the rich expressions of his bounty. We should 
remember that he is a holy and jealous God, and not, by our ingratitude and 
sins, provoke him to ' ' remove our candlestick out of its place, ' ' but strive 
to please and honor him, that he may continue to shed upon us his choicest 
blessings, and prosper us, that our "peace may be as a river, and our 
righteousness as the waves of the sea, ' ' and may continue as long as the 
moon endureth, and till the orb of day shall cease to shine, and illuminate 
this western world. 



20 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

MONDAY, JULY 14, 

HISTORICAL EXHIBIT OF ANTIQUES, 

connected with the town's history in the 
High School Building. 

Historical Exhibit Committee. 

Mrs. S. Katherine Adams, Chairman. 
Mrs. Davis B. Keniston. Miss Millicent Weeks. 

Large collections of rare old articles were contributed by Mrs. 
Willis Kidder, Miss Augusta Glynn, Miss Helen Clark, Miss 
Susan C. Russell, Miss Eleanor J. Clark and Miss Caroline Lev- 
erett, and many others. 

On Monday people thronged the lower floor of the beautiful 
High School building, where the loan exhibit of ancient relics 
was shown. 

It was a curious and interesting display of the cherished heir- 
looms of former days, — mute testimony of many truths, accord- 
ing as one had eyes to see or ears to hear. 

There was the original charter of Plymouth, granted by Gov. 
Benning Wentworth to sixty-two grantees, at Portsmouth, July 
15, 1763. In this list were some names borne by leading families 
of today, others quite unfamiliar to us. There were old deeds 
of land grants, and other legal papers, in quaint handwriting, 
original spelling and bountiful capitalization. Many books dat- 
ing back to the 1700 's, with their bewilderings 's, treated of every 
subject from religious themes to higher mathematics. There was 
an interesting collection of old coins and paper money. 

The first Plymouth post office was there in its entirety. It 
consisted of a huge, old-fashioned bureau-desk with large drawers 
labeled "Hanover," "Boston," "Haverhill," etc., in which the 
postmaster deposited outgoing mail to await the weekly stage; 
also numerous pigeon holes and small drawers in the upper part 
in which the incoming mail was placed for the patrons of the 
office. One could almost see one of those old, blue-papered 
letters, folded to form its own envelope, sealed with wax, begin- 
ning, — "I take my pen in hand to inform you that I received 
your letter of May 19th in due time, that it found me and mine 




Photo b\- J. E. Roynton 

( )li) Pkw tek 





Clock Dated 1792 



Loom 




China ovek 150 Ykaks Oll) 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 21 

enjoying the blessing of good health as I hope these few lines may- 
find you the same." And so on in formal phraseology giving 
good moral advice interspersed with bits of dear home news. 

Passing to another room one could readily reconstruct the 
home life of yore. There were oldtime tin bakers to be placed 
before the glowing coals of the fireplace ; a beautiful collection of 
rare china in lustre ware, gold band, blue, mulberry, pink and 
lavender. This was flanked by pewter utensils of various forms 
and even the old wooden trenchers. Brass candlesticks and 
snuffers suggested the home-made tallow dips. There were old 
foot-warmers used in the unheated churches or on long sleigh 
rides ; brass warming pans that mitigated the chill of the icy bed 
in the spare room; a curious little pair of tongs which an old- 
time smoker used to till his pipe, take a coal from the fireplace 
and light it. And here in a pottery vase was a bunch of posies 
of all hues from mother 's own garden ! 

The first communion set of pewter, now the possession of Major 
Frank Russell, used in the first church on Ward's Hill was there 
also. A tall clock, bearing the date 1792, owned by A. J, Pike 
is said to have ticked away the hours in Daniel Webster's home. 
The following verses were beside this ancient timepiece : 

More than a hundred years have passed 

Since first its works begun, 
Since first its voice rang out to greet 

The rising of the sun. 

Tell me what hands have drawn thy weights 

What eyes thy face have scanned, 
With hope or fear or a longing wish 

Thou eouldst not understand. 

And looking in its face today 

Where the flickering firelight played 
I question what it hath seen and heard 

In the long departed days. 

The occupations of the people were vividly suggested. An old 
loom which came from the family of Stephen York, operated by 
its owner, Mrs. Manson York, was the center of unflagging in- 
terest to the spectators, as the shuttle flew back and forth and 
the strip of carpeting grew, while others showed us how our 
mothers spun the rolls into yarn and reeled it into skeins by 



22 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

means of the clock-reel. There were flax wheels, also, for the 
spinning of linen thread. Beautiful old blankets and coverlids 
of blue and white, brown, and more rarely green or rose, testified 
to the skill and industry of the women-folk; as well as sheets 
and pillow cases, towels and table cloths of linen; bead bags, 
exquisite embroidery and samplers showing the stitches of 
''Elizabeth, aged nine," That the men-folk occupied their 
spare time well was proved by the substantial home-made chairs, 
among them one made by the Rev. Nathan Ward, the first min- 
ister. If his sermons had the same enduring quality they must 
have served his congregation well. 

Then came the wearing apparel of the women and children. 
A pair of ' ' stays ' ' with stiff wooden ribs instead of steels made 
kin of grandma and us of today in our little vanities. There 
were silk and cotton gowns of various colors and designs from the 
skimpy skirts of greatgrandmother, similar to those of today — 
to the voluminous folds that concealed the immense hoop skirts 
of the 60 's. There were rare old silk shawls, feather fans, jew- 
elry, bonnets from the ancient green ' ' calash, ' ' down through the 
"sky scrapers" of the 40 's to the tiny, wee ones of the 75 's. A 
sample of a wedding gown of 1700 bore the legend, — "Dolly 
Leavitt spun the thread from flax and wove this cloth for her 
wedding gown. It was sent to Boston and the figures were 
stamped on it by hand." A little pair of linen breeches were 
said to have been worn by the infant, John Adams, when his 
mother presented her son to the notice of Marquis de Lafayette. 

Our part in the wars was shown by the collection of arms from 
the Revolution and Civil War. The boys were especially inter- 
ested in the old flintlock muskets, the swords, the powder horns, 
and in two Revolutionary canteens which resembled little wooden 
cheese boxes, iron bound ; one had on it a rudely painted bleeding 
heart, the meaning unknown. Then there was the whole war 
outfit of our townsman, Manson Brown, through the Civil War, — 
the knapsack, musket, cap, and coat. 

And so on ; things too numerous to mention, loaned freely by 
their owners, who valued them for the days that were. 

It was not simply a curious display to us, but the Past was 
still with us, teaching us in a tender and beautiful way. As one 
w^eary, elderly woman expressed it, — ^^ Their heads don't ache, 
and they are better off than we." People lingered to tell how 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 23 

their mother's or grandmother's things at liome were like these, 
or better, and to re-live old days. Then former friends, so long 
separated that Old Time had changed them to strangers, would 
meet, gaze, then clasp hands and visit. 

So we celebrated our anniversary, through lecture, speeches 
on the Common and pageant, in all quite forgetful of the present 
until all the members of the pageant circled the field and dis- 
solved again into the Past through the shadowy green paths of 
the woodland. 



MONDAY, JULY 14, 8 P. M. 

ILLUSTRATED HISTORICAL LECTURE IN 
MUSIC HALL. 

Plymouth and Contemporary Incidents 
BY Rev. C. W. Wilson. 

Indian Songs Cadman 

Sung by Miss Wilhelmina R. Keniston 
Accompanied by Mrs. Bessie F. Pease. 

A large number of the views were contributed by Mr. George 
G. Clark of Boston and Plymouth and some special local views 
were taken by Dr. H. H. Lamson. 

Rev. Cyrus Richardson presided and introduced Rev. C. W. 
Wilson, and the following is an abstract of the lecture delivered, 
which had been previously given on May 29 to the school chil- 
dren in the afternoon and the adults in the evening, in High 
School Hall. 

Among the noblest elements of human life is the desire to do 
honor and respect to the past and the labors of those who have 
prepared the way for the benefits of the present ; therefore, we 
do well in desiring to honor the founders of this toAvn, who laid 
the foundations of the community life one hundred and fifty 
years ago. 

For nearly one hundred and fifty years after the landing 
of the Pilgrims at the first Plymouth of the New World, this 
territory remained well-nigh undisturbed by the white settlers. 
Capt. Thomas Baker came with his famous exploring party in the 
year 1712, but no plan of settlement was considered until some 



24 THE ONE HUNDEED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

of the men of the town of Hollis determined to form a new set- 
tlement in the Pemigewasset valley and secured the charter of 
this town, as loyal subjects of King George the Third, July 15, 
1763. The remainder of the year was spent with active prepara- 
tions for the new settlement and in May of the following year 
the colony arrived and began the life of our honored town of 
Plymouth. These first settlers were people of deep religious 
conviction and they organized the Congregational Church of 
Plymouth before leaving the town of Hollis and spent their first 
Sunday in the new settlement in services of worship, in the log 
cabin of Colonel Webster on the site of the former Pemigewasset 
House, with Rev. Nathan Ward as minister, who became their 
settled pastor and ministered to the people for over thirty-three 
years. 

The first decade of the new colony passed prosperously and the 
colony in 1773 numbered 345 persons, which number included 
three slaves; but the undisturbed prosperity was now brought 
to the trying period of the Revolution. In this great struggle 
for national independence the town has a most honorable record. 
Plymouth men were in the struggle from the battle of Lexington 
and Bunker Hill to the battle of Saratoga and shared the hard- 
ships of the winter at Valley Forge. 

After the Revolution Plymouth shared the common lot of hard- 
ship and trial, but with the rest of the country was "rich in 
hope. ' ' The courage as well as the continuing religious purpose 
of the people is revealed in the building of the new church on the 
top of Ward's Hill in 1787, to supersede the inadequate first 
building which had been erected at the foot of the hill. It was 
a time of great scarcity of money and the subscriptions for the 
new edifice were to be paid in the products of the field (wheat, 
Indian corn, peas, etc.). 

The population of 1783 reported ninety-two males and the 
work of new constructive enterprise went forward. An item of 
the times stated that whipping posts and stocks were ordered to 
be erected by the Court as part of the stern penalties for all law 
breakers. 

Plymouth was not called upon to bear much of the burden of 
the War of 1812, although some of the men of the town went to 
Portsmouth at a time of expected invasion and a few men en- 
listed for the service. The period from the War of 1812 to the 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 25 

beginning of the Civil War is nearly a fifty-year period, and this 
half century was a remarkable one in the development of the life 
and growth of the town. The population increased from 625 
persons in 1790 to 1,407 in 1860. Perhaps few things will reveal 
the progress of the community more than the buildings erected 
during this period and the institutions established. "The Old 
Brick," for so many years the center of Plymouth's mercantile 
life was erected in 1822, the Holmes Academy was opened in 
1826, the first brick court house in 1823, and the present Con- 
gregational Church edifice in 1836 (transferring the meeting 
house location from its historic place on Ward 's hill to the center 
of the village). A Social library organization was formed as 
early as 1807, and the first banking house in 1825, on the site of 
the present Kidder building. 

During this period the Methodist Episcopal and Universalist 
churches began their work for the community in addition to the 
First Church (the Congregational). During the last half of this 
division of fifty years, preceding the Civil War, Plymouth gained 
its fame as being the ' ' Gateway to the White Mountains. ' ' The 
First Pemigewasset House became one of the best known hostel- 
ries of the countr^^, and before the days of the continuation of the 
railroad the stage coach service from Plymouth to the Mountains 
formed an interesting and picturesque feature of the life of the 
community. After the burning of the first Pemigewasset House 
in 1862 the second stately structure was erected and its success 
rivaled that of the first building. It was within the walls of this 
second Pemigewasset House that the celebrated writer, Nathaniel 
Hawthorne, came with his friend ex-President Franklin Pierce 
and died during the hours of the night after his arrival. After 
standing about fifty years this structure was also destroyed by 
fire in May, 1909. 

During the progress of the Civil War Plymouth was true to 
her patriotic record and gave freely of her sons and of her wealth 
to support the cause of the nation. Stirring war meetings were 
held in the Congregational Church and elsewhere and the town 
voted promptly to pay the usual bounty for all enlisted soldiers. 
The town furnished from 155 to 165 of its men for the great con- 
flict and paid over $31,000 in bounties. 

Once again our attention is directed to a well-nigh fifty-year 
period since the close of the war in the history of the town until 



26 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

the present time, and this last period has been the best of all in 
progress, growth and development. The passing away of most 
of the business blocks of wood and the erection of substantial 
buildings of brick has greatly improved the village. The selec- 
tion of the village as the seat of the State Normal School, which 
has developed to its present commanding position, with its fine 
building and equipment, the erection of the fine buildings for the 
high and grammar schools, and the excellent work accomplished, 
the establishment of the Holderness School for Boys (ever in 
reality a Plymouth institution) has given the town a continuing 
reputation since the days of Holmes Academy as an educational 
center and a town of culture. 

In addition to all of this the town has just reason for pride in 
the splendid manufacturing plants it possesses, whose products 
go out to the ends of the earth. 

At this point in the lecture. Miss Wilhelmina R. Keniston sang 
two of Cadman's Indian Songs, "From the Land of the Sky 
Blue Waters" and "The Moon Drops Low," both typical of the 
early days of our country when the Indians were the only inhab- 
itants of our hills and valleys; — also "Home, Sweet Home" as 
an encore. 

Mr. John Keniston was then called upon to explain the pecul- 
iarly local pictures. 

This was "the forest primeval," to paraphrase from Evan- 
geline, one hundred and fifty years ago today. A pine forest 
shows what the surveyors were passing through in marking out 
the lots one hundred and fifty years ago this summer. Plymouth 
seems to have been a specially reserved grant, for all the other 
towns around it were chartered previously. It contained an 
unusual amount of intervale lands, a feature most desirable to 
the new colonists. It was laid out in such a way that each could 
draw two pieces of intervale of sixteen acres each and two fifty- 
acre lots of highland. Then there remained thousands of acres 
for the second division, out of which a liberal amount was trans- 
ferred to the Campton Proprietors in settlement of the North 
boundary question, a troublesome discussion for many years. 

The title of this division of the views is Picturesque Plymouth. 
Living here ourselves, we hardly realize the many unique scenes 
connected with our town. 

These river scenes are really historical; for instance, the jam 




Thomas Clark Homestead 




A Hakvest .S( ene Chakle.s W . (Ieokge 




EXTRANCE TO THE FaIR GrOIXDS 




Pulling Contest 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 27 

of logs at Livermore Falls represents an every spring occurrence 
of river driving from the forties to the eighties. 

The picture of the Holderness Bridge (see frontispiece) brings 
to mind that this was at first a toll bridge. The toll house was 
the one on the right nearest the river. This bridge has been 
called on the town records "La Fayette" and is so referred to 
in some deeds. 

This freshet in 1895 is one of the many in the history of the 
Pemigewasset River, — 1869, 1872, and others equally as great. 

The Thomas Clark place at West Plymouth was the Stephen 
Wells Tavern in 1801 and was the place where the Masons first 
held their meetings. The fireplace and the attic are splendid 
pictures of those good old times. 

Here is one of the town fathers, though unmarried, a descend- 
ant of one of the early settlers of the town ; you all know Charles 
W. George. His father also was a selectman. 

These views of the usual "annual fair" are typical of a re- 
curring feature for nearly fifty years. While these views are of 
recent date, all the older inhabitants have seen them duplicated 
from time to time. The picture of Stephen Glover's cattle win- 
ning the pulling contest is significant of the man. Someone had 
remarked that ' ' the test was unfair because pulling down hill, ' ' 
whereupon Mr. Glover headed the cattle up hill and won the 
prize. Having promised to drive an ox team in the pageant for 
tomorrow makes this picture of peculiar interest in view of his 
recent death. 

The view of the Bond, Moody & Mason and Dearborn build- 
ings, formerly located where the Tufts and Fox Blocks are now, 
brings to mind that these were burned in the early sixties. 

The picture of the center of the village shows the Blair & Lev- 
erett office just beyond the church, the Common and the row of 
"ten footers" on the left, among which was the post office and 
the first telephone office. 

Here is one of those unconscious pictures in which two promi- 
nent men were recorded on the sensitive plate by Harry Heath, 
the photographer in one of the buildings opposite the Common 
known as the "ten footers," which has been shown in another 
picture. Mr. Kidder, who stands on the right, had just returned 
from a trip to the Nile River and was consulting with Mr. Fox, 



28 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

on the left, a merchant and also a selectman for many years^ 
about the remodelling of the Congregational Church. 

The Daniel Webster Court House used later as a wheelwright 
shop at South Main Street, is now the Public Library, the gift of 
Hon. H. W. Blair to the Library Association. 

Tliese residents were among the important men in the develop- 
ment of the town. Mr. Lewis F. Merrill was a builder of houses 
and an enthusiast in street tree planting. Almost all of the trees 
on North Main, Merrill and Weeks Streets were planted by him. 
Mr. Amos M. Kidder, born in Plymouth, after the stress of 
business retired to his native town, and proceeded to build many 
valuable structures and started the construction of macadam 
roads and other permanent improvements. 

Mr. Joseph A. Dodge, a resident here during his active life, 
was the superintendent of the old Boston, Concord and Montreal 
Railroad. 

Mr. Samuel C. Webster, a member of the firm founded by Moor 
Russell in 1798, was a merchant of the old type and a great 
trainer of successful business men. 

Hon. Henry W. Blair was once a Plymouth lawyer, afterwards 
a congressman and then a United States senator. He was always 
a hearty participant in affairs of public improvement. 

Mr. James F. Langdon was a man we may well call the Grand 
Old Man of our town, of fine character, a public-spirited man and 
generous in that he took the risk of investing his savings in a 
water system which has protected us from greater losses by fire 
and annihilation by disease for want of pure drinking water. 

The closing remarks of the lecture by Mr. Wilson were as 
follows : 

The town at this anniversary time may well reflect with pride 
and honor both on the strong men and noble women that have 
always been numbered among its citizenship and also in the rec- 
ord of its sons and daughters that have gone out from the old 
home town to play their part nobly in the world's life and work. 
All honor to the faithful men and women of one hundred and 
fifty years ago who braved the perils and hardships of the wilder- 
ness to lay the foundation stones of this goodly structure which 
we have in our community life, they could not see the end of their 
toil or its honor, as they rendered day by day their faithful serv- 
ice ; but the God and Savior whom they worshipped and honored 




Corner of ]\Iai.\ and Highland Streets, 1S()0 




Center of the Town, ISSO 













E* 






^ 


u/^^M 


&^MfiMsl S^^BA 






■ 


1 


w^^^B 








H 


m 


1 






^Q^ 


i 


m^ 




> 


^^ 


iss^^E' 


!^^^ 



Highland Street and Common, 1S93 





Moor Russell 
1757-1851 



Samuel C. Webster 

1817-1883 





James F. Langdon 
1804-1887 



Lewis F. Merrill 
1816-1883 





Joseph A. Dodge 
1818-1883 



Amos M. Kidder 
1837-1903 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 29 

from the first days of their habitation, hath higlily exalted thein 
in these abiding institutions, and may we who are the builders 
of today, with like faith and fidelity and trust in the God of our 
Fathers, add to these historic foundations by laying worthy and 
nol)le foundations for the coming years. Let us reverently not 
only say "God save the state and the nation," but with equal 
reverence say with all our hearts "(roc? save the toivn" and give 
added honor and glory to the name of Plymouth. 



TUESDAY, JULY 15, 9 A. M. 
CIVIC PARADE. 

All roads led to Plymouth and it seemed as if everyone through- 
out the Pemigewasset Valley had gathered here to do honor to 
the town. Several days before the celebration began, the staid 
old town burst forth in a perfect fever of bunting — red, white 
and blue — unchecked but not undamped by frequent showers 
which prepared the way for this, the third successive day of clear 
blue sky and mild breezes. Hundreds of summer guests from 
all of the nearby resorts came by train and automobile to witness 
the exercises. 

Promptly at 9.30 a. m. the civic parade formed on North Main 
Street, under command of Major George R. Foster, and Aids 
Walter B. Adams of East Orange, N. J., Harry S. Sherwood and 
Clesen Tenney. The parade moved down Main Street west of 
the Common to Russell, Warren, up South Main Street to the 
Common, in the following order : 

Chief Marshal, Maj. George R. Foster. 
City letter carriers, Harl Pease, Moody P. Gore and Leon W. 
Worthen, mounted and in uniform, carrying the United States 

flag. 

Three six-horse teams of the Plymouth Highway Department, 

with employees in white. 

. Pemigewasset Hose Company No. 1. 

Aquangemuck Hook and Ladder Company No. 1. 

Float of Plymouth Ice Company. 

Street Sprinkling Department. 

Float of the Standard Oil Company. 



30 THE ONE PIUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

The Keiiiston band, John Keniston, director. 

Cadet Clesen Tenney of West Point, aid to the marshal. 

One hundred children from the primary schools. 

Emerson E. 0. Gitchell Canton, I. 0. 0. F., No. 14, Farley G. 

Avery, captain. 

E. 0. Wright Camp No. 17, Sons of Veterans. 

Six-horse float containing pupils of the Plymouth district schools. 

Float, High School. 

Float, John W. Harrower. 

Float, Draper-Maynard Company. 

Puritan Drum Corps. 

Exhibit of stock and automobile from the Pemigewasset Farms. 

Chaise, 100 years old, carrying Mrs. Moody Page Gore of 

Plymouth and Mrs. E. C. E. Dorion of Boston. 

Float, Lester E. Mitchell. 

Float, Tufts & Co. 

Walter B. Adams of East Orange, N. J., aid to the marshal. 

Float, Charles S. Milligan. 

Float, Albert M. Rand. 

Float, William R. Coffey. 

Float, Albert F. Burtt & Co. 

Float, Henry W. Rogers. 

Team in pink and white, driven by Miss Hazel Fern Caldon, 

representing Fred W. Brown. 

Float, W. G. & I. H. Chase. 

Float, Frank Green Smith. 

At the same time a decorated automobile parade of twenty-five 
cars formed on South Main Street under command of Edward 
A. Chase and the celebration committee, and moving north met 
the civic parade. In the automobiles were the General Commit- 
tee, the speakers, the Civil War Veterans, and the octogenarians 
of the town with their husbands and wives, who were the special 
guests of the day. 

When opposite the State Normal School grounds the parade 
was halted to witness the unveiling of a tablet, erected on a 
seven-ton boulder by the Asquamchumauke Chapter, D. A. R. 
The tablet marks the site of the Holmes Plymouth Academy and 
New Hampshire's First Normal School. Two little girls, Eliza- 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 31 

beth Denman of Sedan, Kan., and Thorndike Rubert of Owego, 
N. Y., daughters of members of the chapter, ofRciated at the 
unveiling. 

The automobile parade moved up Main Street to High, Lang- 
don, Pleasant, Winter and Russell Streets where it met the civic 
parade, giving the guests a second opportunity of witnessing 
the floats. 

When the parade reached the Common, three thousand people 
were massed about the bandstand, where the speaking exercises 
of the day took place, with Honorable Alvin F. Wentworth as 
President of the day. 



TUESDAY, JULY 15, 10.30 A. M. 

HISTORICAL AND LITERARY EXERCISES. 

Fellow -citizens, Friends and Neighbors of the good old historic 
town of Plymouth : 

We greet you here today; we welcome you at these exercises 
of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. Mr. Keniston, who 
so kindly introduced me, says that we have to preserve all these 
pictures and all of the historic things which are now on exhibi- 
tion for the next celebration fifty years from now. That proba- 
bly may be true, so far as he is concerned, but as for the rest of 
us we are going to remain here ourselves and be here fifty years 
from now to take part at the next celebration. 

You do not want to listen to any extended remarks from me. 
You have come here to listen to others, and it is not my purpose 
to rob them of their time. 

Plymouth has many things to be proud of. She has long been 
noted for her achievements in an educational manner. Those 
began many years ago, only forty-five years after the granting 
of the charter of Plymouth. This is not a long time in the mem- 
ory of man, and it certainly is a short time compared with the 
history of a town. That institution was established and later 
on dedicated to the education of young ladies and young men 
who chose to come for the purpose of extending, in a broader 
way, the education of the state. That, my fellow-citizens, was 
the thirteenth institution that was established in New Hampshire. 



32 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

We are now gathered together where some of the first settlers 
settled, and where one hundred and fifty years ago today was a 
wilderness. No wonder that when we pause and reflect w^e are 
reminded that Plymouth then, as she is now, was first in educa- 
tion and mental progress. Today we point with pride to our 
institutions of learning — to our Normal School and our High 
School, whose fit for college cannot be surpassed. 

We have just unveiled a tablet in commemoration of a part 
of this event, presented by the Daughters of the American Revo- 
lution, and as one of the milestones which our beloved town is 
passing on its journey, and first, as a part of our exercises, let 
us turn our attention to this. 

I take pleasure in introducing to you Mrs. Jennie J. Webster, 
wife of Dr. Lorin Webster, rector of the Holderness School, who 
will now, in behalf of Asquamchumauke Chapter, Daughters of 
the American Revolution, present this tablet in commemoration 
of Holmes Plymouth Academy. 

Mr. President, Fellow-Citizens of Plymouth, Former Residents and Quests: 
This is a day of memories. Plymouth with its one hundred and fifty years 
is filled with historic interest and long before the granting of the town 
charter, history was being made here that will survive through the ages. 

Before a white man traversed this part of the country a band of Indians 
encamped near the confluence of our two rivers. Moving along the banks 
of the longer stream they found the course was crooked and they called the 
river the Pemigewasset. Tracing the smaller stream back to its source they 
discovered that it rose on Mount Moosilauke, — ' * the place of the moose ' ' — 
and, therefore, they named the second river Asquamchumauke by combining 
three Indian words, asquam, wadchu, and auke, meaning ' ' the place of the 
mountain water. ' ' Asquamchumauke was as familiarly known as was 
Pemigewasset until after Lieut. Thomas Baker 's encounter with the Indians. 
His brave deeds were told and retold until, forgetting its sighifieance, the 
Indian word was dropped and the stream has since been called Baker's 
Kiver. 

Rather more than two years ago a local chapter of the National Society 
of the Daughters of the American Revolution was formed in Plymouth and 
by unanimous vote of its charter members the chapter was called Asquam- 
chumauke Chapter, thus giving such prominence to this rhythmic, musical 
Indian word that it will be heard the length and breadth of this great 
country. All patriotic organizations are interested in locating and preserv- 
ing historic places and events. Asquamchumauke Chapter considers it a 
privilege to take even a small part in this one hundred and fiftieth anniver- 
sary celebration, and it is with a deep sense of thankfulness that it can 
unveil and dedicate today a granite boulder bearing a bronze tablet with 
this inscription: 




^ 




Holmes Plymouth Academy 




Photo by Dalton Studio 

Memorial Tablet and Boulder 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 33 

' ' This Tablet Marks the Site of 

Holmes Plymouth Academy, 

Established in 1S08 through 

the Liberality and Public Spirit op 

Colonel Samuel Holmes 

of Campton, N. H. 

A Revolutionary Soldier. 

The First Training for Teachers 

IN New Hampshire Was Given Here in 1837. 

The Academy Buildings Were Presented 

TO the State for a Normal School in 1871. 

Erected by 

Asquamchumauke Chapter, D. A. E., 

July 15, 1913." 

The ground where the boulder has been placed was made historic through 
the wise forethought and generosity of prominent men living in this vicinity 
in the early part of the eighteenth century. Realizing the importance of 
having good educational advantages for the younger generation, they set 
about raising funds for an academy and secured for it an act of incorpora- 
tion from the state legislature. Col. Samuel Holmes was living in Campton 
at that time — a man who was a Revolutionary soldier, a colonel in the 
militia and prominent in town affairs. Although Colonel Holmes had no 
children of his own, still, because he was public-spirited, broad-minded and 
generous, he gave liberally of his substance to promote this educational 
project. His gift must have been appreciated for the Act of Incorporation 
which was granted in 1808 established an academy at Plymouth by the 
name of ' ' Holmes Plymouth Academy. ' ' Col. Samuel Holmes was president 
and treasurer of the board of trustees until his death in 1823. The memory 
of this man and of his good deeds will live. 

The Rev. Dr. Samuel Reed Hall became principal of Holmes Plymouth 
Academy in 1837 and the first training for teachers in New Hampshire was 
given here by him in that year. To Dr. Hall belongs the distinction and 
honor of being the first person in America to give normal training in the 
art of teaching. 

Holmes Plymouth Academy had its halcyon days and its periods of de- 
pression. After years of struggle, the corporation was dissolved and a 
private school took its place. The Act of Incorporation for a normal school 
was granted in 1870 and after the trustees decided to establish a school in 
Plymouth, attractively and centrally located, the town purchased the Acad- 
emy buildings in 1871 and presented them to the state. 

The last line of the inscription, "July 15, 1913," is simply a fact today 
but tomorrow it will be history that wdll grow in value as the years increase. 
The date marks the observance of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary 
celebration of this tovra. As the centuries come and go, may stone and 
bronze be kept unharmed and may the inscription, withstanding the ravages 
of time, remain legible. May the coming history of Plymouth be such that, 

3 



34 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

although it may not be inscribed in tablets of bronze or marble, it will be 
recorded with credit in the Book of Life. 

I have the honor of introducing to you Prof. Henry D. Wyatt 
of Chattanooga, Tenn., who was at one time a student in Holmes 
Plymouth Academy and later an instructor there for a short 
time, and who has since been prominently identified in other 
states in educational matters. 

GLIMPSES OF SCHOOL LIFE IN PLYMOUTH FIFTY YEAES AGO. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls of fifty years ago and 
Boys and Girls of the present generation: 

* ' All roads lead to Eome ' ' used to be a familiar expression, so all roads 
lead to Plymouth. For some time after I was born everything looked so 
new and strange, I could not tell whether I was on the Campton or Plymouth 
side of the Line, but as I grew older, I would see jjeople passing ; ' ' Where 
are you going ? " " We are going to Plymouth. ' ' Teams with their great 
loads, four- and six-horse stage loads of people were constantly going to 
and from Plymouth. 

I remember one day being in the old district school near the corner of 
Main and Hog road in Campton and we children heard a long, continuous 
whistle, and the teacher said it was the cars coming into Plymouth. In edu- 
cation, as in business and pleasure, we supplemented by going to Plymouth. 

The first select school I attended in Plymouth was taught by Miss John- 
son in the village school building on Main Street. I studied Latin, Geome- 
try, etc., and declaimed ' ' On the deck stood Columbus. ' ' We sung in the 
closing exercises the part song, ' ' The Old Mountain Tree. ' ' 

In the old Plymouth Academy Mr. George Merrill and Mr. A. J. Huntoon 
held sway as principals from the spring of 1860 to 1862, inclusive. Some 
of the assistants were Mr. Elisha Hinds, the French teacher, and Mrs. Hun- 
toon who taught a flourishing Primary Department a portion of the time, 
and for a short time I assisted in the common English branches. 

Under Mr. Merrill we boys were startled with the announcement that we 
must have orations. My subject was "Man the Architect of his own For- 
tune. ' ' One of the illustrations used was Daniel Webster. The principal 
gave me a good, practical lesson in the art of condensation by crossing out 
a large portion of my long introduction and substituting therefor a short, 
comprehensive comparison. In one of our exhibitions in the second story 
hall, to properly carry out the play a gun must be fired in the school yard 
below, and a signal was to be given by a pistol shot from the upper window. 
The speaker was charged with that important duty and also he must imme- 
diately rush to the stage and pitch and lead a piece of vocal music without 
the aid of an instrument. The window not being fully open, the somewhat 
confined pistol shot stopped up both ears of the performer, but the play must 
proceed at all hazards, and so he rushed in and mechanically strucTc a pitch 
and led the music — but from that day to this has never been able to tell 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 35 

■what pitch was given or how the music sounded, and it was several hours 
before his head resumed its normal condition. 

The school terms at the academy were usually during the spring and fall. 
There was no established curriculum but the course of study was arranged, 
largely, so as to conform to the ideas of the principal and the needs and 
wishes of the students. The old district school was ungraded, but was 
popular and very valuable whenever it obtained the right kind of a teacher, 
who must teach all beginners and advanced classes of boys and girls whether 
the school numbered ten or fifty pupils. The drill in mental Arithmetic and 
Grammatical analysis of those days, I fancy, would be interesting for both 
grammar and high school students of the present day, and challenge their 
keenest thought. 

Yes, the Old District Schools may be regarded as the little standing armies 
or garrisons of the Great Republic for liberty and education. No substitute 
has yet been found to completely fill the place of the old singing school. 
Think of the old Chorus Club that used to meet at the Pemigewasset House 
and wrestle with the vocal and instrumental music of the old masters! 

In the winter of 1860-1861 I taught in Anson Merrill's district and the 
Lower Intervale — two schools in one season, and the next year in the Lower 
Intervale. Some debates were held in this district in which citizens partici- 
pated, notably, Mr. Daniel and Henry Currier. We wrestled with such ques- 
tions as ' ' Whatever is, is right. ' ' Resolved, * ' That there is no such thing 
as genius. ' ' 

In 1862 I was studying Greek with Squire Burns, an excellent teacher, 
but heeding the call ' ' to arms ' ' I enlisted in the army, and returned in '63, 
and, at the suggestion of my old teacher, took the Primary Department of 
the village school, and later in the winter of '67- '68 I taught the Grammar 
Department. 

"A little child shall lead." To be a good teacher of little children is 
a great accomplishment. Looking at it rightly the little child oft turns 
teacher and the teacher becomes the learner. But the abandon and trust- 
worthiness of small children, when they have been well trained in musical 
or physical exercises, are remarkable, and as illustrated in the allegory, 
Childhood and Youth are restless, and eager to press forward in search of 
greater happiness and more alluring prizes. 

"Now children do not hurry away. 
Let's sing a song and join in play, 
The day is long ere night will come. 
Let 's wait a little and have some fun. ' ' 

' ' Oh Teacher, quiclc, we all must go, 
For we must each have time to grow 
Eich fruits and prizes our coming await, 
And Youth stands watching at the gate. ' ' 

* ' There 's truth my children in what you say, 
But can't you linger just one more day? 
Let's frolic and sing in joyous play. 
And chase the prizes another day. ' ' 



36 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

^'Oh tve can't wait — just look up there, 
See the golden fruits, the gems so rare: 
So we must hurry and soon be there, 
Or we shall never get our share." 

And so the children all have fled — 
Not one is left — and some are dead: ^ 

Others have scattered, some grown gray, 
Since that beautiful, merry childhood day. 

Sweet, innocent, playful Childhood. 

How bright, and cheery your song; 
Oh Youth with bright visions of glory. 

The joyous, sweet strain prolong. 

Noble Manhood in the thick of the battle, 

All full of its business and strife; 
Old Age, with its losses and triumphs, 

Eeaps the fruits of its earlier life. 

Eeturning again to Plymouth Academy, a picture of the school and build- 
ing was shown, also an old circular of 1864. From the spring of '64 to '65 
inclusive, Mr. E. Mellen Wight and Henry D. Wyatt were principals, and 
for a portion of the time Miss Martha Hazelton and Miss Sarah E. Blair 
were assistants. We had a lively, interesting school and as we believed that 
religion and morality were an important part of education, the Bible, prayer 
and song were introduced, and sometimes a religious meeting was held for 
students outside of school hours. The academy was kept open during the 
summer of '64 by H. D. Wyatt with a smaller school. This was in the line 
of permanency and what might have been had not the war fever interrupted 
we cannot tell. 

"Dear Holmes Plymouth Academy — we cherish your name, 
Your projectors, so worthy, are entitled to fame, 
Your hardships and trials, the struggles you met, 
We, your children, now grateful, should never forget. 
Your conceptions were lofty, your plans deep and broad, 
Religion, Education, your standard The Word; 
All hail to the heroes who thus early did rally 
For the uplift of this great Pemigewasset Valley. 
With curriculum extensive, teachers gifted and true. 
Students earnest, devoted, and though sometimes but few, 
The Roll sometimes grew larger spread out to our view, 
Showing students more useful, perhaps, than they knew, 
And their value as leaders in the world's fierce strife. 
Their value as workers in the great battle of life, 
All thro ' this valley and the world 's wide domain. 
The good results of their labors must ever remain. 
Then to Holmes Plymouth Academy let's rally once more, 
Let our acclamations grow stronger than ever before: 




( JkXKH AI, (\)MMrrTF.K 




Makshal; 




City Cakkieks 




Scenes ix the Civic Parade 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 37 

So high in ideal, yet careful in choice, 
She led and encouraged with cheerful voice; 
There was interest in study, excitement in play. 
With prayer and sweet music she led the way; 
She believed in activity — true progress and song, 
Not averse to enjoyment by the youthful throng, 
But ne 'er deemed it wise to introduce or let in 
Modern fancies and fads, or anything akin 
To the ' aeroplane glide ' or one step ' tango ' — I wot. 
Nor a bunny hug waltz or 'the turkey trot.' " 

Pioneer work is ofttimes slow in showing the best results and especially 
in educational matters — but, when the people of Plymouth and vicinity 
rebuilt the old Holmes Plymouth Academy they showed an earnest, heroic 
spirit, and although the enterprise was not self-sustaining, and finally 
resulted in dissolution, you may now congratulate yourselves that the 
worthy efforts then put forth were, at least, one great factor in producing 
your normal school, your high school, and your excellent system of public 
education. 

Two of the notable things in one of our school exhibitions were "The 
Six Crows," and Plymouth in 1922. The latter was an original piece 
written in rhyme describing some of the changes about to take place — Hand 
Chopping Mills, telegraph at every man's door, flying machines or airships 
bringing the papers from California, canal cut from Livermore Falls and 
the flat across the river occupied by cotton mills, the old academy changed 
to an educational use, but different from the present. The Eip Van Winkle 
of the play was one of the students who had slept until 1922 and when 
awakened described the village as it appeared nearly sixty years before. 
That student has been active in his sleep and is one of your best professional 
men, and when he becomes fully awake in 1922, I will not venture to suggest 
what practical or wonderful things he may reveal. There are yet nine years 
remaining for the full accomplishment of the predictions made so long ago. 
Should Plymouth keep on growing rapidly, and in a quarter of a century 
boast of fifty or seventy-five thousand inhabitants — by the introduction of 
various manufacturing enterprises, then electric street car lines would be 
in order, also lines running to The Weirs and the nearby towns and villages, 
and the Plymouth Light and Power Company would establish an electric 
plant at Livermore Falls, instead of cutting a canal to furnish all the power 
needed. Then a Great White Way might be established from the Baker's 
Eiver Bridge to the foot of Main Street, also extending along School Street, 
up Highland Street to the Pemigewasset Hotel and ending with a 600-foot 
Tower on Ward's Hill. 

Oh the beautiful hills and valleys so fair, 

With wild flowers so brilliant, and pure, bracing air; 

Oh, the beautiful rivers so charming in flow. 

As they come from the mountains, and southward they go 

To swell the great ocean so restless and free. 

They murmur and sing on their way to the sea. 



38 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

Oh, charming, bright meadows with birds and sweet flowers, 

"With their gurgling rills, and soft shady bowers; 

We hail thee old Plymouth with location so fair, 

Like a gem fringed with jewels so rich and so rare; 

How happy thy people, thy churches and schools, 

How happy thy outlook where sagacity rules, 

Come stand on Ward 's Hill, view the broad landscape o 'er, 

Mark the entrancing beauties of nature's bounteous store. 

Baker 's crystal river, fair slopes and laughing rills, 

White cottages, variegated meadows backed by evergreen hills. 

The New Pemigewassett with appointments complete, 

Accommodations so ample, substantial and neat, 

With outlook so cheerful, table classed with the best, 

A delightful place for tired travelers to rest. 

Old Plymouth, New Plymouth, all one and the same. 

Look well to your treasures, look well to your fame. 

Let naught bar your progress, nor cause you to err. 

But onward and upward — let nothing deter. 

Let thoughtfulness, patience mark the course you pursue, 

Keep what's good of the old — reach out for the new; 

May your sons and your daughters prove zealous and true, 

That you never may falter, but your youth may renew. 

And now let all who can join in the old song — Hurrah for old New 
England. 

1. This is our own, our native home, 

Tho' poor and rough she be. 
The home of many a noble soul, 

The birthplace of the free. 
We'll love her rocks and rivers, 

'Til death our quick blood chills. 
Hurrah for old New England, 

And her cloud-capp'd granite hills. 

Chorus. 
Hurrah for old New England, 

And her cloud-capp'd granite hills. 
Hurrah for old New England, 

And her cloud-capp'd granite hills. 

2. Shall not the land, tho ' poor she be. 

That gave a Webster birth. 
With pride step forth to take her place 

With the mightiest of the earth; 
Then for his sake whose lofty fame 

Our farthest boundaries fills. 
We'll shout for old New England, 

And her cloud-capp'd granite hills. 

Chorus. 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 39 

3. They tell us of our freezing clime, 

Our hard and rugged soil, 
Which hardly half repays us for 

Our spring-time care and toil; 
Yet gaily sings the merry boy. 

As his homestead farm he tells. 
Hurrah for old New England, 

And her cloud-capp'd granite hills. 

Chorus. 

4. Others may seek the western clime, 

They say 'tis passing fair. 
That sunny are its laughing skies. 

And soft its balmy air; 
We'll linger round our childhood's home, 

'Til age our warm blood chills, 
'Til we die in old New England, 

And sleep beneath her hills. 

Chorus. 

"We have with us today a man who is a descendant, perhaps, of 
one of the oldest families of this town — this was an honored 
family whose name will never be forgotten in the history of 
Plymouth — a man who has accomplished much and of whom 
Plymouth is proud. 

It gives me pleasure, without taking more of your time, to 
introduce Rev. "William Hayes Ward, lineal descendant from the 
third generation of clergymen from Rev. Nathan Ward, first 
settled minister of Plymouth. 

Mr. President, Fellow Citizens of Plymouth: 

I think I may today call myself a citizen of Plymouth. I am by lineage 
if not by present residence. I rejoice in Plymouth. It has been an old 
name with me — a proud old name. How many times my father would tell 
about it. And I must introduce myself further as a son, not only of an old 
resident of Plymouth, Eev. James Wilson Ward, but my grandfather was 
pastor of the church here for many years. Rev. Jonathan Ward; and his 
father, Nathan Ward, was the pastor of the first church and a member of 
the first colony that came here and settled this town of Plymouth. And I 
think of Plymouth as a sort of model of the better influences that made our 
country, just as I think of New Hampshire as a sort of model of the 
country itself. 

Have you ever thought of it, that two great elements of power met in the 
settlement of this country and those ^ame two elements met and sought tlieir 
several aims in the settlement of New Hampshire? Remember that the 



40 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

largest part of the United States was settled for the purpose of trade, of 
merchandise, of getting a better position in life for themselves. Besides 
all who came for that purpose there were those who came for one other 
purpose also, which was predominant over it, that is, those who came for a 
special religious purpose, and they came to Plymouth, Boston and Salem, 
Mass. Those were the only colonists that came to this country along the 
whole extent of the United States for the purpose of freedom in religious 
life; and yet, for whatever other purpose of trade or wealth settlers came to 
Maine, to Portsmouth in New Hampshire, or came to Virginia or Georgia 
or Florida or Louisiana or to the extreme west, whether English, French or 
Spanish, yet this little portion that came to Plymouth, that came to Salem, 
that came to Boston, have given tone and character, principle and religion 
to the whole nation. Strange it is that such a thing has been. 

Now how was it in New Hampshire? In New Hampshire there came a 
company of merchants to Portsmouth. They knew nothing particular about 
religion, they had no interest particularly in religion. 

About the year 1720 there was appointed as governor of New Hampshire 
at Portsmouth an officer by the name of Burnet. As I remember it he came 
up in a sloop from Carolina and was met at Newport by a Company of 
Horse who came down to meet him and accompany him to Portsmouth. The 
story is told that as he left Newport he asked the captain of that Company 
of Horse what was the custom in Portsmouth about saying grace at meals, 
and the answer given to him was this: As your Excellency approaches 
Boston the graces will become longer and longer, but as your Excellency 
leaves Boston the graces will become shorter and shorter until you reach 
your own jurisdiction where there is no grace at all. 

Now that represents one of the elements that were to create the state of 
New Hampshire. There came other colonists, who also sought a better 
living, but were animated by a higher purpose. A company of them settled 
in this town of Plymouth. They came from the old Puritan stock that 
settled in Salem and Boston in 1628 and 1630 fleeing from religious tyranny. 
They came up here with their church and their minister, with religion in 
their heart and religion put first in their heart. They sought, as we all must 
seek, to better their condition, with better land and better farms. But they 
wanted more — they wanted to bring up their children in the fear of God — 
they wanted to establish a great commonwealth, not simply strong, but 
righteous — they put conscience before wealth. They went to church; they 
built their meeting-house. It was God's commonwealth that they wished to 
establish. There is more blood and iron in a stern conscience than there is 
in mines or mountains of gold. 

The force which controls everything is the moral force. It is not physical 
force, it is not political force; it is the moral force. And so it is that we 
speak of New Hampshire as one of the great states which have a true 
religious spirit, which beUeves in God, which believes in the Christian 
Church, which believes in justice and liberty for all people, and doing good 
for all. 

When I came here the first thing I wanted to do was to walk up to Ward 's 
Hill. I wanted to see the house which my greatgrandfather built. An old 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 41 

tumbled down house it is now at the top of the hill. I like to see the 
influence which went forth from the preaching of Nathan Ward and his 
son, Jonathan Ward. I remember Jonathan Ward very well indeed. He 
died in I860, I believe, but for ten years before that he had been in the 
habit of coming down to see my father who was pastor of the church in 
Abington, Mass., and he would come down with a lame horse and a chaise 
from near Exeter and stay with us for weeks and months, perhaps, at a 
time, and he would preach for my father when over eighty years old. He 
wanted to do pastoral work and accordingly he would go into the outskirts 
of the town with horse and chaise, come to one of those small houses and 
knock at the door. When the woman would come to the door, he would ask 
in his trembly voice, ' ' Are there any here that would like to have a minister 
of the Gospel pray with them ? ' ' And they liked to have him come ; some of 
them liked it very much. I found that out afterwards when one day — one 
Sunday in my native town — I had occasion to preach there, and at noon a 
good old woman from the Thicket, as we called it, stopped where I stopped 
to get lunch and she came up to me — I had preached in the morning — and 
she said, ' ' Well, you preached a very good sermon, this morning, a very 
good sermon. ' ' Well that pleased me. ' ' But, ' ' says she, ' ' you can 't preach 
the way your father could and he couldn 't preach the way his father could. ' ' 
I am ready to believe it. Homer, I remember, said somewhere, and Homer 
expessed a very general opinion, ' ' Some children are equal to their parents, 
some few are better, but most are worse," Now I don't believe that the 
generations grow worse. I believe, and am glad to believe, they grow 
better — I know they ought to grow better — but I know they grow wiser. 
I know that we are learning more from generation to generation and I hold 
to the old teaching that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. 

We live in a better age than that of our ancestors of a century and a half 
ago. This does not mean that we are greater or stronger or better men and 
women, not at all. A dwarf on a giant 's shoulders can see farther than the 
giant. We are heirs of all the progress of these five generations. Science 
has taught us much. We have learned much of toleration that comes out of 
liberty, and a wiser notion of religion has come to our people. 

My grandfather, Jonathan Ward, thought that Methodism was a sad 
heresy. He believed that Methodists were almost as bad as Socinians, and 
Socinians almost as bad as infidels and infidels were about as bad as atheists. 
Now I haven't the printed sermon my father wrote against the Methodists, 
but I have the sermon in which the Methodist preacher pitched into my 
grandfather and answered bigotry with bigotry. 

Now, my friends, I want to impress it upon my own self and upon every 
one of you that there are two things that must stand together and they are 
religion and education. You cannot separate them; the two belong to- 
gether. If a people have not the sense to search for truth, to welcome all 
new truth, their religion will lapse into superstition. If they have not the 
sense of religion, their education and their learning will lapse into pride and 
luxury and a fatal loss of character and national ruin will be the result. 

Hold them together, the church and the school. Let your children grow 
up to attend the schools just as soon as you can get them to do it. Pick 



42 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

out your choicest boys, pick out your choicest girls and let them carry on 
their education. Father and mother, let them learn what they can, let 
them be leaders in what is right and good. That is the way it was with my 
grandfather. He was a leader. He went to college and was one of the two 
first scholars in his class and he was a man who believed in progress of every 
sort — was among the first to preach temperance and was equally against 
slavery. I have the sermon he preached on one occasion in which he showed 
how wrong slavery was before God. That was before anti-slavery was 
popular, in the years before Garrison and Phillips and Sumner were speak- 
ing against slavery. 

I was interested and pleased last night when I heard that Garrison was 
not allowed to make an address in the first church here. I am not sure 
that my father would have allowed it in his church and yet my father was 
an original Abolitionist. Garrison was a brave and persistent speaker 
against slavery, but at the same time he was one who as persistently made 
himself the enemy of his country and declared that the Constitution of the 
United States was ' ' a covenant with Death and an agreement with Hell, ' ' 
and he attacked the Church most bitterly, and the Bible as well, and that 
was the reason they didn 't allow him to speak in the church. 

Now William Lloyd Garrison was a splendid man for all that. He was an 
honorable man. I read his Liberator when I was a boy, and since then I 
have talked with him, have walked with him and have honored him. When 
the war came he changed his position towards the country. He honored and 
loved it for destroying slavery. As we honor and love it, let us never forget 
that our free institutions rest on the durable foundation of education and 
religion and let us pledge our services for country, for education, for colleges, 
for high schools, normal schools and for a free church in a free state. Thus 
must we strengthen the bonds of education and religion. Thus we shall 
make this, as as it is and has been and ever shall be, one of the greatest 
countries in the world and a blessing to the whole universe of mankind. 

We have with us one who needs no introduction to you. He 
was once pastor here, this being his first pastoral position, 
from 1869 to 1873. He has since gone forth into larger and 
broader fields of activity and usefulness. He is another one of 
Plymouth's citizens of whom she is justly proud for the honor he 
has conferred upon her. 

I have the pleasure of introducing Dr. Cyrus Richardson, of 
Nashua, who was pastor of the First Congregational Church of 
that cit}' for twenty-six years. 

Mr. Chairman, Citizens of Plymouth, and Friends : 

Your committee felt justified in asking me to speak on this memorable 
occasion for two reasons: first, because nearly a half century ago I came 
here to become a citizen of your town. Distinguished people were then 
alive, — James McQueston, John Keniston, the Eussells, Senior and Junior, 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 43 

Samuel Burns, Arthur Ward, and a host of other meu and women, the men- 
tion of whose names awakens a patriotic spirit. 

Last evening there was thrown upon the screen a picture of the freshet 
that covered the intervale in the autumn of 1869. I was installed as pastor 
on a Thursday. On Friday of the same week, it began to rain. It rained 
all day and all night, and all the next day and all the next night and all of 
Sunday and all of Sunday night, until the whole intervale was literally 
covered with water, like a great lake. Would you believe it, that freshet 
was to me a godsend. I reached Plymouth with just two sermons at my 
disposal. It rained so hard that only a handful of people came to church, 
and I was asked to repeat my sermons. All that week I was the happiest 
minister you ever saw— I have never felt so rich since— for I had two ser- 
mons on my hands, a thing very rare during my whole ministry. 

The second reason for asking me to speak was that after I became an 
adopted citizen, you gave to me one of your most gifted and cultured women, 
—a woman the touch of whose life has been upon me through all these years 
to cheer, to comfort and to inspire me for the tasks set before me. In my 
griefs and in my joys; in my failures and in my triumphs the voice of that 
gifted woman has sounded in my ears like the tones of a silver bell leading 
me onward to the best that was in me. In the name of that gifted daughter 
of yours, my beloved and sainted wife, I speak to you today. 

We are living, friends, in a transitional period of the world's history. 
We are passing out of the old into the new,— out of old thought into new 
thought, out of old methods into new methods, out of old paths of industry 
and education and religion into new paths. Change is written all about us, 
—on the farm, in the school, in the church, change here in New England, 
in the Middle West, on the Pacific Coast, and in the old empires of the 
Orient. Bicycles set the pace yesterday; automobiles set the pace today; 
and airships will set the pace tomorrow. We are moving on, as Dr. Ward 
has well said, to something higher and nobler and better in the history of 
the world. 

A few years ago I visited the museum in Honolulu, that fijie city of the 
mid-Pacific. I saw in that museum the relics of the past in the island em- 
pire — the little huts into which the natives crawled on their hands and 
knees a hundred years ago ; the rude implements with which they delved in 
the soil, and the rude weapons with which they went into battle. I went 
from the museum upon the streets, vdde and tree-lined. I saw magnificent 
business blocks, splendid schoolhouses, fine churches, telegraph poles, tele- 
phones, everything that belongs to an up-to-date city, and I said to myself, 
''All this splendid change vnthin about seventy-five years." That old 
barren waste has been literally transformed into a watered garden. I saw 
the same thing in Japan, I saw it in China, I saw it in Egypt. This pro- 
gressive movement today belts the globe. But the peril with us, friends, 
is that we separate ourselves from the past with its heroic achievements. 
We say that we have outgrown it ; we have got beyond it ; it is left behind ; 
it is dead; we are sufficient unto ourselves. But no man is sufficient unto 
himself. He belongs to all other men; he is born into the family, and 
whether he would or not, he belongs to it. He is born into the body politic 



44 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

and is a part of it. He is born into the human race. The whole race be- 
longs to him, and he to it. We have received a rich legacy from those who 
have gone before us. The very life blood of your Plymouth forebears is 
in your veins today. You are cultured and great because they lived. Their 
force and energy and character have made you what you are. 

My friends, all the centuries have contributed to our welfare. Homer and 
Milton and the other great poets of the ages wrote their immortal poems 
-for us. Handel and Haydn and Mozart composed their peerless oratories 
for us. Eembrandt and Titian and Eaphael painted their pictures for us, 
Daniel Webster and Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln and William E. Glad- 
stone uttered their political speeches for us. Nathan Ward and Jonathan 
Ward and George Punchard and Henry Hazen preached their sermons for liS. 
All the great and good of the past ages lived and wrought for us. It be- 
longs to us to enrich the inheritance which they transmitted to us. 

It is well that the Daughters of the American Eevolution have dotted 
New Hampshire with memorial tablets, similar to the one they have dedi- 
cated this morning as a memorial to Holmes Academy. They bring us into 
touch with all that is great and good in our state. When you go into the 
high school building this evening to examine the historic exhibit of articles 
handed down from former generations, you will see before you in vivid 
picture what is noblest and best in the history of Plymouth, and you will 
catch an inspiration that shall send you forward toward the next centennial 
in higher and holier achievement. You ask what have our sires handed 
down to us? I answer, their first gift is freedom. They interpreted to us 
afresh the spirit of the first century of our Christian era. They went from 
Scrooby to Amsterdam, from Amsterdam to Leyden, from Leyden across the 
trackless ocean to these then inhospitable shores that they might gain for 
themselves and for us the delights of freedom. They made possible the 
writing of the verse which we all love to repeat. 

' ' The motto of our sainted sires, and loud we '11 make it ring. 
The church without a bishop and the state without a king." 

This spirit of liberty, my friends, is marching forth among the nations 
of the earth. Go to Japan, or to China, or to Egypt, as I did recently, and 
you will see groups of people on the streets. Ask what they are talking 
about, and you will find that they are talking about human rights, about 
that freedom which God gave to the world through the lips of Him "who 
spoke as never man spoke"; that freedom which is like the shot fired at 
Concord Bridge "heard round the world." 

These ancestors have given us also that spirit of loyalty to truth and right 
and that reverence for Almighty God which have made our people rugged 
and strong. Though they lacked the graces and refinements of our day, 
they possessed in full measure the strength and vigor seen in the face of 
the Old Man, carved on yonder mountain, — those rugged virtues that have 
come down to us as a matchless inheritance, urging us to lofty achievements. 

And so out of all the graft and the greed and the perils of today, which 
are multiplied on every hand, we shall rise to higher levels of thought and 
feeling and action ; and instead of being descendants from our sires we shall 




Photo by J. E. Boynton 



SCEXES IxV THE CiVIC P.VHADK 




o 




CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 45 

be ascendants to something greater and nobler. Your Plymouth sires whose 
memory we today honor have made their mark in the world. Some of them 
have gone to the large cities, and the great West, and across the seas. The 
touch of these men and women has been felt far and wide. What did it 
mean to send a man like President Tucker to become the head of Dartmouth 
College — a man whose influence has reached to the very ends of our country 
and beyond the ocean? What did it mean to send Henry Wyatt to Tennessee 
to become an educational force in that section? What did it mean to send 
Judge Eussell to the city of Detroit, whose practice in law and whose 
decisions upon the bench adorned his whole profession in Michigan? What 
did it mean to send many of your most refined women out into the nation? 
It meant that their influence, helpful, beautiful, sweet, resplendent, has made 
the world wiser and richer. And so, friends, out of all the confusion and 
the distractions of the present we shall come at last to a glorious epoch in 
our history. 

I close with the prophetic words of the gifted Dean Stanley who several 
years ago visited our country. He said,, ' ' In that memorable hour, memo- 
rable as in the life of one who for the first time visits the Pyramids of 
Egypt, or the Alps of Switzerland, when I stood before the Falls of Niagara, 
the scene which I witnessed was an apt likeness of the fortunes of America. 
It was midnight, and the moon was full. I saw from the bridge which spans 
the river the confusion, contortion, whirl and chaos bursting forth in clouds 
of foam from that immense central chasm which divides the American from 
the British dominion. As I looked upon that ever-changing scene and lis- 
tened to the everlasting roar, it seemed to me an image of the devouring, 
perplexed, bewildering activity, the ceaseless, restless whirlpool of existence 
in the United States. But in the moonlight sky there rose a cloud of spray 
twice as high as the falls themselves — silent, majestic, immovable. That 
silver column glittering in the moonlight, was to me an emblem of the future 
of American history — of the upward, heavenward destiny that is to emerge 
from the distractions of the present and lead the civilization of the world." 

Those prophetic words have been fulfilled. This nation is at the very 
forefront of all that is great and glorious in the world. In our day and our 
generation, my friends, we are to do our share that we may honor our ances- 
tors and carry their superb work to its glorious consummation. 

Is there any wonder that Plymouth is proud of her sons? I 
had thought the hour was getting late, but I could have sat here 
all day and listened to our friend and former to^^^lsman, Dr. 
Richardson, but we have another one of Plymouth 's distinguished 
sons with us and I am not going to take any of your time intro- 
ducing him. 

He was born in Plymouth, reared in Plymouth, and has spent 
the larger portion of his life here in Plymouth. He, too, is a 
descendant of an honored New England family who have had a 
long residence in Plymouth and who have been connected with its 



46 THE ONE HUNDEED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

leading mercantile establishment for over one hundred years. 
His military ability is equalled by few and excelled by none. 

I have the pleasure of introducing to you our beloved Major 
Frank Webster Russell. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I sympathize with you all in being compelled to sit and listen to the 
remarks / have to make, after the other speakers. 

I have been asked to give a brief talk upon reminiscences of business life 
in Plymouth. My personal experience of that life is limited to the mercan- 
tile line. In 1874 I became a bookkeeper for Webster, Hull & Company, 
the firm being made up of Samuel C. Webster, William W. Eussell, Jr., and 
William G. Hull. The next year Mr. Hull sold his share to my brother, 
William, and me, and tve formed a new partnership with Samuel C. Webster 
under the style of Webster, Eussell & Company. It continued to be so 
known until 1911, when the stock of goods was closed out, although its 
membership had been lessened by the death of Samuel C. Webster in 1883 
and that of William W. EusseU, Jr., in 1892. 

The business to which we succeeded was established by my grandfather, 
Moor Eussell, in 1798 and was carried on by him in a small wooden build- 
ing — the same that was shown you on the screen last night — standing on 
the Eumney Eoad, or Highland Street, just east of where William M. 
Peppard lives today, until 1822, when he and his son David Moor built 
"The Old Brick." This store was enlarged in 1854 by a three-story 
addition, and a fair-sized stock of general merchandise could always be 
found therein until a few months before its transfer to Joseph L. Tuttle, 
the present ovraer. 

From 1850 to 1862, when it was burned, "The Depot Store" (so called) 
built by William W. Eussell, Sr., on the site of the present freight depot, 
and used for handling the heavier sorts of merchandise in a wholesale way, 
was conducted in connection with "The Old Brick." 

In the early years of the business nearly all the goods were purchased in 
Portsmouth and several teams were employed in taking local products to 
that market, to return with an assortment of commodities so varied that 
it was said to include everything ' ' from a chipping squirrel to an elephant. ' ' 

Subsquently when Portsmouth lost its commercial prestige, Boston be- 
came the Mecca for traders of northern New Hampshire as well as those 
from nearly every other section of New England. For many years two 
large eight-horse teams ran regularly between Plymouth and Boston taking 
two weeks for the round trip. One of them was driven by Deacon James 
Morrison, who will long be remembered for his positive and sturdy Chris- 
tian character. His great granddaughter. Miss Margaret Howe, was presi- 
dent of the class of 1913, of the State Normal School here. 

At certain seasons additional wagons were put on to draw the accumulated 
produce to Boston ; and some of them continued their way as far as Hartford, 
Conn., laden with grass seed, a large quantity of which was then raised 
in this region. 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 47 

As the railroad gradually crept up into New Hampshire the routes of 
these lumbering, horse-drawn vehicles were successively shortened, and they 
reached the vanishing point in January, 1850, when the Boston, Concord and 
Montreal ran its first regular freight train into Plymouth, with a cargo 
wholly made up of merchandise for ' ' The Depot Store. ' ' 

When the business was transmitted to Webster, Russell & Company in 
1875, that firm was very far from having the field entirely to itself. Sharp 
and able competitors were alert and enterprising in the persons of John 
Mason and Plummer Fox, once partners, but then rivals. Mr. Fox was 
located where the Fox Block now stands. He followed Benjamin Baker 
Dearborn, his father-in-law, who had been a successful and respected mer- 
chant of this town. Mr. Mason was established on the site of the present 
Sargent Block where Hon. Nathan H. Weeks and R. E. Smythe were not 
long after associated with him. 

Webster, Russell & Company, however, possessed a tower of strength in 
the unique figure of Samuel C. Webster, a man that stamped his image on 
this community more permanently than anyone (within my knowledge) who 
has ever lived in it. For me he stands the everlasting model of the real, 
old-time country trader. His mind was quick, inquiring and original, and 
had he received the early advantages that many enjoy he would have gained 
a national reputation. He never forgot the hardships of his childhood and 
often spoke of them with feeling. ' ' I have tasted the bitter dregs of 
poverty in my life, ' ' he would say. ' ' Look in the old family Bible. There 
you will find the record, * Samuel Cummings Webster, born February 4th, 
1817. Cold and Stormy. ' Emblematic of my career, by ginger. ' ' 

After a year spent in the store of Maynor Davis at Barnet,Vt., he was 
eleven years a clerk and forty-one a partner in ' ' The Old Brick. ' ' From 
the first it was manifest that he had chosen his rightful calling. It was a 
point of honor with him to keep his stock complete. There is a tradition 
that he once silenced the criticism of certain doubters who, to test his 
resources in that direction, had inquired for such unrelated antiques as a 
hog yoke and a second-hand pulpit, by promptly furnishing both the useful 
implement and the foundation of eloquence. 

Trade in any form was to him the very breath of his nostrils, but he 
fairly revelled in that form of exchange commonly called 'barter. In the 
seventies long credit was a feature of most transactions. Many accounts 
were settled but once a year, and then by a promissory note which might not 
be paid for another year or even longer time. The final payment was apt 
to be made in some product of the farm, field or forest rather than in cash. 
To a customer known to be solvent, although short of ready money and 
therefore somewhat slow in payment, who hesitated about buying an article 
that he fancied, Mr. Webster would offer an inducement like this : ' ' Take it 
along ! I will take my pay in hoop poles and axe handles next winter ; or I 
will take my pay in eggs and wait for the hens to lay 'em and I 'U give you 
double price for a two-yolked one. ' ' For emergencies he devised a simple 
but effective code of watchwords: for example, if he had an unusually hard 
lot of produce on his hands, and was turning the man, who brought it, over 
to the clerk that was to show him the goods from which an equivalent for 



48 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

this produce was to be selected, he would repeat the words indicated by the 
famous signal displayed by Lord Nelson from the mast-head of the flag ship 
Victory at the battle of Trafalgar; "England expects that every man will 
do his duty. ' ' This signified to the salesman that the prices he must realize 
for the wares exhibited were not to be any less than those demanded from a 
^ash purchaser. It is needless to say this occurred before the wholesome 
custom of marking the selling prices in plain figures had been generally 
adopted. If persons suspected of entertaining hazy ideas concerning the 
right of property lingered in the store, he would exclaim, ' * Two-ten. ' ' 
This, being interpreted, by every employee within earshot to mean, ' ' Look 
out for 'em! Keep your two eyes on their ten fingers." 

Illustrations could be multiplied indefinitely of his zeal and versatility in 
liis business, and the unremitting attention he gave to it. He was a firm 
believer in the early English maxim revised by Dr. Franklin, "Keep thy 
shop and thy shop will keep thee," and he exemplified it in his own life 
and conduct, oftentimes to the detriment of his health and the injury of 
vital matters outside his daily vocation. 

The building of the Pemigewasset Valley Eailroad in 1882, was not 
approved by him, for he foresaw that, while it would develop the Northern 
country and increase the population and importance of the village at its 
farther terminus, it was sure to deal a heavy blow to the mercantile interests 
of Plymouth, which had drawn much of their patronage from the towns of 
Campton, Thornton, Woodstock and Lincoln. 

Many of the clerks employed in the Old Brick and Depot stores after- 
wards became substantial citizens in this and other states. In 1891 my 
brother William wrote out a list of all that he could remember from per- 
sonal acquaintance, or that he ever heard of. It includes more than one 
hundred names. Time permits the mention only of a few that are most 
familiar in this vicinity from what those who bore them have accomplished 
near home: Charles H. Bowles, Alexander G. Smythe, Plummer Fox, John 
Mason, Edward H. Sanborn, Joseph M. Howe and Charles J. Gould. 

The world has moved fast in the past thirty years. Astonishing trans- 
formations have taken place in every department of human endeavor, and 
nowhere are these more striking than in the methods of collecting, shipping, 
distributing and retailing merchandise. The mail order house, the city 
•department store have come into being. These agencies having millions of 
capital at their command, and making unrestricted use of the telephone, 
rural free delivery and parcel post have compelled increased energy and 
ingenuity on the part of those country merchants that resolve to keep abreast 
of the times. Here in our town they have apparently accomplished this end, 
and Plymouth has a number of well-stocked, well-managed and up-to-date 
■stores amply sufficient to supply the present and coming wants of its people. 

Plymouth is proud of a man who has done valiant service, and 
has honored him. We are sorry that we do not have him with us 
today, but we are fortunate in having received a letter from Hon. 
William Jewett Tucker, who lived in Plymouth during his child- 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 49 

hood and youth in the home of the Rev. William Reed Jewett. 
He was president of Dartmoiitli College from 1893 until about 
1910, prior to which time he held many important offices. 

I have the pleasure of introducing to you Rev. Dr. Cyrus Rich- 
ardson, who will read this letter from Dr. Tucker. 

Eemarks by Dr. Richardson before reading letter : 

It is a great pleasure to read this letter from the conspicuous citizen of 
New Hampshire, trained in this church near us, trained in this town, sent 
forth among the forces that should be felt in the uplift of the whole country. 

Hanover, N. H., July 12th, 1913. 
Dear Mr. Keniston : 

It is with much more than mere regret that I find myself unable to accept 
your very kind invitation to take part in the observance of the day. Though 
an adopted son of the town, I have the true spirit of filial gratitude. Plym- 
outh gave me the home of my boyhood and the wife of my early manhood, 
and brought me into those relations to the state which have meant much to 
me in my personal and professional life. If I were talking in the freedom 
of an after-dinner speech, I should like to set forth in personal detail what 
Plymouth was to a boy from 1846, when upon the death of my mother, I was 
brought from Norwich, Connecticut, a boy of seven, to be adopted into the 
home of my uncle and aunt, the Eeverend and Mrs. William R. Jewett, to 
1856 when I left home for school and college. Doubtless a boy of that time 
knew some things which escaped the attention of his elders. Certainly he 
knew some men in a boy's way better than they knew one another; for the 
village had its genuine boys' men. Such was Sam Eowe, our nearest neigh- 
bor, the best fisherman in the region, who was always ready to tell us just 
where we could find the biggest trout, but always added, " It 's no use ; 
they'll just sniff at your bait and say they guess they'll wait for Sam Eowe 
to come round." And so they always did. Such, too, were Benjamin Ward, 
a little further up the hill, the old cabinet-maker, full of the lore of quaint 
histories. How often have I sat in his shop listening with wondering ears 
to his tales of lost islands of the sea, and buried cities of the land. Such 
was O. H. P. Craig, — Captain Craig of the Sixth New Hampshire Infantry, 
— then village shoemaker, the soul of good humor and manly sense, whose 
shop radiated as healthy an influence over boys as a school — I do not wonder 
that as young men they followed him in battle. And quite near by my 
home, where I was sent on the daily errands for milk and where I strayed 
much oftener on my own account, were Uncle and Aunt Noah Cummings 
(both equally entitled to the masculine Noah) the undisputed authorities 
on all neighborhood happenings. Of course every boy knew the stage 
drivers and was wise in his discriminations about the handling of the four- 
horse and the six-horse teams. Even when the coming of the railroad 
transferred something of this wisdom to the names of the engines and their 
respective capacities in speed and power, the stages had the center of in- 
terest so long as they controlled the way to the mountains. When I was 
4 



50 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

brought by stage from Concord, the overladen coach "took fire," — in the 
vernacular of the time, — from a heated axle-tree. This happened at the 
lower intervale and occasioned a late and anxiously awaited arrival. Could 
any entrance have been more to the mind of a small boy? 

My school days were passed chiefly in the academy under its changing 
fortune of teachers; but the most unique experience was in a private school 
taught for several sessions in the Methodist vestry by Mr. Cass. Mr. Cass 
was very near-sighted and had the still greater infirmity for a teacher of 
a passion for long and unusual words; but he knew how to teach in spite 
of his infirmities. No other teacher whom I ever knew could have called 
a school to order and actually achieved the result, in these words, ' ' Let the 
school now preserve tranquillity." 

But the real education of a boy of that period was in the home and in 
the social life of the community. Senator Blair, another adopted son of 
Plymouth, has often said to me that his later knowledge of the country had 
shown him no town more representative of good breeding and good manners. 
The names of the families which will be most in evidence during this cele- 
bration will confirm his words. And when to these are added the names of 
those who were frequent attendants at court, the familiar lecturers from the 
platform of the New England Lyceum, and the travelers of distinction who 
loitered in the place, it will be seen that the on-going life of the community 
was in itself, even to the unwitting mind of a boy, a school of culture. 

In a like casual but Very real way the boy took his lessons at first hand 
and without partiality in the school of nature. He learned the true meaning 
of the democracy of nature. It was easy to fling the saddle on his horse 
and take a morning or evening ride to Prospect for the view from Winni- 
pesaukee to the mountains ; easy to follow the streams with his rod. But aU 
winter sports had their price, for which he often paid in frost-bitten fingers 
and toes. I have never believed that the city boy developed into the summer 
resident, who takes Nature in her gentlest moods, ever quite knows the mean- 
ing of what I have called the democracy of nature, — the rule of those great 
and masterful equalities which make up the democracy of society. 

The village boys of my time were keen politicians. Early and late they 
attended the March meetings in the old town house on Ward Hill, and were 
never disappointed if the metting were prolonged into the second day. They 
knew the personal bearing of every vote. They were less surprised than 
many of their elders at the results of some elections. I can recall to this 
day the faces of some of the older Democrats on the morning f oUovdng the 
first election in the ' ' Know Nothing Campaign. ' ' A caricaturist could have 
filled his note book with telling sketches. Later the interest grew serious. 
The issues leading up to the war were perfectly plain to a boy. It has been 
a never ceasing grief to me that a severe and protracted fever prevented me 
from falling into place with the boys of Plymouth in the ranks of the army. 
For those who went to the war I have always felt the honor which was their 
due, an honor from which I could never quite exclude the feeling of envy. 

But these boyhood remembrances should have no large place in the midst 
of the great reminiscences and the great reflections of the day. It is the 
proud distinction of Plymouth that it is a town of historic standing ; prouder 



^Kis^^ssitt^ ^ ^^^m_— 


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^^m 


^K-^ 
H S' 




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P*'- 


^^^^^^^Hl|^^-;.' 


fc-: 



Rksiden'ce of 
Major F. W. Hui^sELL 



Residence of 
Dr. G. H. Bowles 




"Residence of 
Dr. E. C. Chase 




Congregational Church 

AND 

Courthouse 



Residence of 
R. L. Ramsdell 




Post Office 
AND Employees 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 51 

yet, that its historic standing is supported by its steadily advancing life. 
Its honorable traditions are held in untroubled retrospect because the town 
passes on into its larger educational and industrial development. It is good 
to reflect upon this mutual respect between the past and the present. It is 
good from the point of view now reached to anticipate the future of the 
town. Unchanged in its natural setting, the changes which are taking place 
within are carrying it farther into the life of the world, and making it as 
honorable a thing to be, as it ever was to have been, a citizen of Plymouth, 
I am, in constant loyalty to the town and in good wishes for the occasion, 

Most sincerely yours, 

William Jewett Tucker. 
(By C. C. T.) 

Plymouth has been honored in other walks of life as well as 
that of education and in the ministry. She has had other citizens 
who have followed other vocations of merit. 

We have received another letter from one of those. Plymouth 
has honored him, and through him she has had the privilege of 
furnishing to this Union a man who has served next to the high- 
est office within the gift of the people, that of senator of the 
United States. 

It gives me pleasure to introduce to you this man 's former law- 
partner, Hon. Alvin Burleigh, one of your honored citizens, who 
will read this letter which we have received from the Hon. Henry 
W. Blair, ex-senator of the United States. 

Eemarks by Mr. Burleigh before reading letter : 
Fellow citizens: 

I esteem it a high privilege to read a letter from the Hon. Henry W. 
Blair, one of the best and most loyal friends and one of the most helpful 
and beneficent friends that the town of Plymouth has ever had, — a man 
who has rendered not only most helpful and beneficent aid in advancing 
the interests of this town, but who has distinguished himself in the state 
and in the nation as representative in Congress for many years, and as a 
senator of the United States; who enlisted in the quota of Plymouth and 
served as a distinguished officer in the War of the Eebellion, and who was 
wounded and left his blood on the plains of Fort Hudson in the Civil War 
that his country might live. His age of seventy-eight years, and the infirm- 
ities incident thereto, make it impossible for him to enjoy the pleasure of 
being here today and speaking to you with his own voice. 

Permit me now to read his letter: 

Colorado Building, Washington, D. C, July 8, 1913. 
Gentlemen and Fellotv Citizens: 

When I received your invitation, a few days since, by letter from the 
Hon. Alvin Burleigh, my friend and associate for more than fifty years, to 



52 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

be present with you upon this historic occasion, I immediately resolved to 
be there if possible, and I have diligently labored to that end ; but increas- 
ing lameness, compelling resort to my almost constant crutch companions, 
has settled the question against me, and, with deep regret, I lose an oppor- 
tunity to meet once more with my surviving friends of the last seventy- 
eight years, and to renew the memories and associations of a long lifetime. 

Although in recent years I have mingled less than formerly with you, and 
with the inhabitants of the whole Pemigewasset Valley, yet I have always 
fondly noted everything relating to your increasing prosperity, and, if I 
have one last wish to be gratified by the loving Providence who watcheth 
over us all, it is that my mortal remains may await the sound of the last 
trump in the soil of my ancestors, with my kindred and early friends. 

I was born in Campton, but have intimately known the people of Plymouth 
since 1842 — seventy-three years — and in fact, all the towns of East Grafton 
exist in my memory as one great, idealized, and almost sacred community. 
You may think this evidence of a dreamy old age, but, only for my lame 
legs, I am as well and smart as any of you, young or old. 

So my verdict shall stand. The whole Pemigewasset Valley, and the 
people who have lived and who now live in it, are unsurpassed and are 
unsurpassable by any now existing, or known to history. It is a great pity 
that some one does not do for the whole what the town of Plymouth has so 
well done and published by the competent and able labors of many, written 
in graphic style and supervised by the gifted and experienced historian, 
Hon. Ezra Stearns. 

When I first knew Plymouth, in the summer of 1842, the Eussells, the 
Websters and the Eogers were the most numerous and prominent families, 
and the hotel of Hon. D. E. Burnham the great traveling center for fifty 
miles in every direction. Eev. George Punchard was the Congregational 
pastor, but he was absent for a year on sick leave, in Europe. His voice 
had failed, and he returned to resign his charge. I well remember his 
touching farewell. Every Sabbath the church was crowded, and, as I recall 
them, the men looked like Eoman senators, and the women like the Eoman 
matron Cornelia, only she had fewer children to show as her jewels than 
they, for they had many, while she had but two. 'Squire William C. Thomp- 
son was the leading lawyer, very learned and wise, but 'Squire Quincy of 
Eumney dominated in the trial of causes — in fact, had no superior in put- 
ting the ' ' main pints ' ' to the jury, in the whole state. Nathaniel Peabody 
Eogers, probably the finest writer the state ever produced, and quite the 
equal of Garrison in the anti-slavery movement, had resigned from law prac- 
tice recently, to devote his labors wholly, and finally his life, to the cause 
of freedom. He died in 1846. 

The Methodist church, since so vital and powerful, was then fighting for 
its life, and time has since shown how good a thing it is for all to dwell 
together in unity. All are one in Christ and Christ in God. 

The Holmes Plymouth Academy was revived by the Eev. James H. Shep- 
ard in 1850, I think. I got one term there in 1851 and another in 1852. 
Then taught district school one winter in Campton and took a term at the 
New Hampshire Conference Seminary, in the spring of 1853, then taught 










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W 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 53 

the district school in Plymouth village, wiuter of 1854—55. Some present 
may remember what a bad teacher I was. I 've always been sorry for it. 
I had about eighty pupils of all sorts and sizes, and only a scant supply of 
nursing bottles, and those most of the time empty. This was the first term 
in the then new house. After that, the school was graded. 

Began to read law with William L. Everett, a deep thinker in the prin- 
ciples and well read in the books, May 1st, 1856. Admitted to the bar 
May term 1859. Married December 20, 1859, to a woman whose name and 
memory will live while the valley endures ; then county solicitor two years, — 
and then the ivar. 

Of this to say much now is impossible and to say little in to do injustice 
to the infinite mass of heroic sacrifice and achievement of all, both of those 
who fought on the bloody field, and those who labored, and suffered even 
more than death, at home. And what voice or pen can do proper tribute to 
the mothers and wives and the whole womanhood of the Civil — or of any 
other war? How often it is easier to die than to live! 

One chief disappointment that I can not be with you today is that I lose 
an opportunity, which is gone forever, to meet the surviving veterans whose 
presence will be the most pathetic, yet the most notable feature of your 
celebration. They are the proudest of all among you. They are like the 
survdvors of the old Eevolution at Bunker Hill, to whom the great orator 
exclaimed : ' * Venerable men ! You have come down to us from a former 
generation ! ' ' The fathers made the nation. These veterans preserved it. 
Let their joint work be perpetual. 

Of what followed the war, I must speak briefly, premising that I owe 
everything that has come to me in public life, primarily, to the people of 
Plymouth, and I cheerfully place this on record today, for they first sent me 
to the legislature as their representative, in the year 1866. 

There are three things that you behold before you, and I trust they 
may survive to future generations, of which I wish to write a word before 
closing, for now, as I am growing older, I remember them with peculiar 
satisfaction : 

First, the Normal School. 

Col. Joseph Burrows was chairman of the committee. Most of the work 
had fallen upon me, but he was for the school. When the trustees met at 
Concord to decide the location, I went alone with our Plymouth proposition. 
There were several towns hotly contesting, and some of them made me very 
fearful of the result. The decision had to be made that night. The hearing 
was closed and all were most anxiously waiting. About 11 o'clock p. m., 
the trustees sent for me only, and Hiram Orcott, chairman of the Board, 
and state superintendent, Hon. A. C. Hardy, told me that if I would guar- 
antee them two thousand dollars more in money, so that they could start 
the school that spring, they would locate at Plymouth. Otherwise, they 
could not establish the school until after the next session of the legislature, 
and, as the opposition to any normal school was very strong, the whole thing 
must fail. I had no authority to pledge an additional cent. The trustees 
said they would take my personal word and note for it. I was not worth 
a cent and was in debt, and told them so. Still they said they would take 



54 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

my note. The decision had to be made before midnight — and I gave my 
note and we got the school. 

I arrived home on the noon train of the next day. Colonel Burrows was 
at the depot and a great crowd was waiting. I told him what I had done 
at my own risk. He looked stupefied, almost shocked, and did not speak. 
And I said, "But I had to, or not get the school — and we have got the 
school." Those who remember Colonel Burrows know how generous and 
warm hearted he was. "Yes, yes," says he, "and now we must see what 
can be done. ' ' 

Those were hot times politically, and I was in the minority in the district. 
There was a tremendous and intensely bitter opposition to the district as- 
suming that note. But the great mass of the noble-hearted men who led 
the Democratic party would not stand for so mean a thing. There must 
be men living who remember the hot meeting in the old school house, when 
the district assumed that two thousand dollars and saved me from a burden 
which might have ruined my whole life. 

This impressed upon me a lesson never yet forgotten. The people are 
naturally noble, and, not only just, but generous. They never will inten- 
tionally wrong any man. Therein is the hope of our free institutions. 
Thus will God save the state. 

No more accomplished or beloved family ever settled in our valley than 
that of Rev. Canon Lewis P. W. Balch, of Virginia, a classmate for three 
years with General Meade at West Point, and his wife, Mrs. Emily Balch, 
of sacred memory, and their numerous children. It was my lot to act for 
them on business matters and in close personal relations, for several years, 
and in the protracted efforts and negotiations by Dr. and Mrs. Balch to 
establish a school for girls on their estate, thus carrying out the set purpose 
of his life, his motto being, ' ' If the mothers are right, the world will soon 
be right. ' ' 

Finally, and after his death, it was decided to establish the very superior 
school for boys which so honors its patrons and the community and will 
increase its influence as the generations come and go. 

And finally, there is the old Daniel Webster Court House and the Young 
Ladies ' Library Association and the action of the town in these later years. 
God bless you all. I apprehend that there is intrinsically no more inter- 
esting public library on this continent. 

Hiram Farmham died. The old court house was about to be destroyed. 
There seemed to be no sentiment for the homely old building. I bought it 
for fifty dollars. Jarvis Sanborn did the work. It cost me one thousand 
dollars before it was through with. So there it stands, and there may it 
stand forever. 

But it is of no use, for volumes of reminiscences rise up before me. 

I am done. I have tried to get within fifteen minutes, for I know what 
an awful thing a long speech is on such an occasion. A parting word — As 
we are proud of our ancestry and not ashamed of our own record for the 
last half century, so, by the blessing of God, let us transmit this glorious 
heritage unblemished to coming generations. 

Please accept my hearty thanks for the invitation to be with you. 





Daniel Webster 



Daniel Webster Courthouse as 
A Wheelright Shop, 1870 




Webster Courthouse as the Plblic 
Library, 1905 



Ex-Senator 
Henry W. Blair 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 55 

If I get better of my lameness and you see fit to invite me, I shall make 
a special effort to be present at your next serai-centennial celebration. 

Meanwhile, and forever, — if the minister will prniit me, as the hymn book 
of my youth used to say: 

May the grace of Christ our Saviour 

And the Father 's boundless love 
With the Holy Spirit's favor 

Eest upon us from above. 

From your loving fellow-citizen and friend, 

Henry William Blair. 

Rev. Arthur Norman Ward, a descendant of one of Plymouth's 
most noted families, has sent your committee a poem, which I am 
sure you will all enjoy hearing. This poem will now be read by 
Rev. Doctor B. Alfred Dumm, pastor of the Congregational 
Church. • 

PLYMOUTH OF THE PAST. 
By Akthur Norman Ward. 

Picturesque Plymouth by the winding river. 
Bears a name known the wide world over. 
When the first settlers to this wilderness came. 
They brought with them this honored name. 

As the mountains are round about Jerusalem of old, 
So the everlasting hills this little town enfold. 
Beautiful for situation, the joy of all her children. 
To each returning one she gives a hearty welcome. 

The passing years their tragic tales have told, 
The boys and girls we knew are getting old. 
Their heads grown grey, as far and wide they roam, 
Today they gladly seek their childhood home. 

No spot than this more dear in all the earth. 
Where once we gathered at the fireside hearth. 
No place so sacred in all our anxious quest 
As where the loved and lost are laid to rest. 

We call to mind the town of long ago, 

With its two streets we then so well did know. 

Along the river bank meandered one, 

The other led up the hill toward the setting sun. 

The traveler then sought Burnham's tavern. 
When cars and stage made this their daily haven. 
A genial landlord presided o 'er this place. 
Known far and wide, an old-time boniface. 



56 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

With anxious hearts we waited the noonday train, 
The papers for war news were searched again. 
While Colonel Eoby bore up the street on bended back, 
Uncle Sam 's mail in a heavy sack. 

The business center was then ' ' the old brick store, ' ' 
Where gathered teams from all the country o'er. 
There could be found a hustling, bustling, busy man, 
A Yankee trader, known to all as Webster Sam. 

Three buildings stood facing the public square. 

Typical of the town and its people's greatest care. 

For the church, the court, the school they early made provision, 

Showing their regard for law, learning and religion. 

The old grey church on the hilltop stood. 
Fulfilling its mission to make men good. 
Here worshiped the fathers in the days of old, 
Where later thay gathered town meetings to hold. 

Like a lighthouse beacon on its rocky mound, 
So this old church could be seen the region around. 
A magnificent view from this point can be had 
Of mountains and hills to make the heart glad. 

Stately Mt. Prospect rises near at hand. 

To the north Sandwich Dome looks over the land. 

The blue peaks of Franconia in the dim distance appear 

To the west the mountains of Eumney seem to be near. 

In the river valley lies the peaceful intervale. 
While the dark forests creep over hill and dale. 
All these dear spots a vision of beauty unfurled, 
As they once gave bounds to our childhood world. 

A schoolboy sat by the window in the old academy. 
And watched the marching men of Captain Craig 's company. 
Their bayonets gleamed in the light of the morning sun, 
As they moved to the music of fife and drum. 

It was a difiicult matter to study then, 
When boys were wishing they were full grown men. 
The dark clouds of war hung over the land, 
And the country called loudly for a helping hand. 

We saw the boys in blue go forth to battle, 
On many a field they faced the muskets' rattle. 
Some grew weak with wounds and heavy toil. 
Some left their bleaching bones on Southern soil. 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 57 

Wan and white from swamp and prison pen, 
A few came gladly home to live again. 
While many a mother was made to mourn, 
Waiting in vain for her son 's return. 

But there came a day when the clouds of war were rent asunder. 
Who can forget the glad news of Lee 's surrender ! 
The town gave up to rejoicing night after night, 
As the boys on the common built bonfires bright. 

Fifty long years since then have nearly been numbered, 
While many brave boys in their graves have slumbered. 
A few battle-scarred veterans are with us yet. 
Whose sufferings and service may we never forget. 

Many events of those distant days we still can see 

The singing and the spelling schools, and the husking bee. 

We hear the shouts of the boys on a winter 's night 

As they coast on Eussell Hill in the bright moonlight. 

We see the crowds that came on railroad meeting day. 
And again when the county fair each fall held sway. 
When the circus with its animals came to town. 
Was another great day for all the country 'round. 

The meeting house bell has swung in its tower for many a day. 
Calling to worship and to occasions grave and gay, 
We used to hear its solemn strokes as it tolled for the dead, 
While its midnight fire alarm filled hearts with dread. 

We search the streets in vain for familiar faces, 

We find a new generation now fills their places, 

Some have crossed the river, and are in the Master's keeping, 

Under the pines in yonder churchyard they now are sleeping. 

It is well to call to mind the men of former days. 
To give to our worthy sires their due meed of praise. 
To recount the deeds, and remember the cherished dreams 
Of those who lived, and loved, and labored amid these scenes. 

May this little town among the hills continue to be 
The one place on the map for you and for me. 
Though her children may wander the wide world over, 
Plymouth will always mean home to the rover. 



58 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

TUESDAY, JULY 15, 3 P. M. 

PAGEANT. 

Scenes from the early history of Plymouth, N. H., 
given on the grounds of Mr. Davis B. Keniston. 

Pageant Committee. 
Mrs. Bessie F. Pease, Chairman. 
Mrs. John E. Smith. Mrs. George R. Foster. 

Miss WilhelminaR. Keniston. George R. Foster. 
John Keniston. J. Frank Gould. 

Director of the Pageant. 
Miss Maude Fiske. 

Costume Committee. 
Mrs. Moody P. Gore. Mrs. Willis Kidder. 

Mrs. William M. Peppard. Miss Alice Spaulding. 

Stage Property. 
Mrs. H. H. Lamson. Mrs. I. H. Chase. 

Dr. George H. Bowles. 

Grounds Committee. 
Davis B. Keniston. William R. Kimball. 

Luther E. Pierce. Edgar 0. Spaulding. 

Livingston D. Fogg. 

Episodes of the Pageant. 

I. The Defeat of the Indians by Captain Baker. 
II. The Capture of John Stark and his Companions. 
III. The Granting of the Charter. 
IV. The Drawing of the Lots. 
V. The Coming of the Settlers. 
VI. A Sunday Service. 
VII. Old Customs. 

VIII. The Reception to Governor Wentworth. 
IX. Off to Bennington. 
X. The Arrival of the Students of Holmes Academy. 
XI. Muster Day. 
XII. The Passing of the Pageant. 





^* 






'Mt3aw*tfe«*l*^«i^itoj»»feitiiw' I H r wi—i ^Iwpbaigj^tjaj^i'Kil 



Episode I. An Ind 



I A \ >( ' !■: \ I ; 





Episode 1. Waterxomee Episode II. John Stark 




Episode II. The Indian Fkjh'i 




Episode III. Granting the Charter 




Photo by Dalton Studio 

Episode III. Granting the Charter 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 59 

PAGEANT. 

No artist could have designed a more perfect setting for the 
Plymouth pageant than Nature herself provided, and by some 
happy accident it had been preserved in the heart of the town 
as if for this very purpose. The great audience, gathered on the 
grassy hillside south of High Street, looked directly down on the 
stage of a natural theatre. In the foreground, a level meadow ; 
beyond, a gently rising green slope ; at the back, a flickering cur- 
tain of birches; and above and beyond, a great back-curtain of 
towering pines. On the right rose the rocky heights of Webster 
Ledge, and from the left a grassy road came winding out among 
the birches. Ledge and pines may have looked down on just 
such a scene as that of the first episode in which Capt. Thomas 
Baker, the first white man known to have trodden Plymouth soil, 
defeats the Indians and gives his name to Baker 's River. 

The pageant is ushered in by the quiet minor strains of an 
Indian melody. Down the rocky pathway from the ledge 
comes a solitary figure, Waternomee, chief of the Pemigewassets. 
Standing on the hillside, he looks out over the meadows which 
his tribe have held so long, but from which they are so soon to 
vanish. Now they come into view, a silent, stealthy line of 
Indian braves, followed by squaws bending under their heavy 
burdens. The wigwam is set up, the women go about their work, 
children play by the fire and the braves sit idly resting, till a 
band of hunters returning bring in their spoils. Then the In- 
dians celebrate the successful hunt, and, sitting in a great circle, 
pass the pipe from hand to hand. 

The music breaks into troubled chords as armed figures, creep- 
ing in from bush and tree, threaten the quiet scene. Then with 
a shout Captain Baker and his men are upon the unsuspecting 
enemy. Waternomee falls with a crash, the Indians, fighting 
desperately, are driven back, and the forest once more swallows 
up white man and Indian. 

Forty years have passed and the Pemigewassets are gone from 
the Plymouth meadows, but the Indian trail from St. Francis 
leads down the Connecticut, along Baker's River to the Pemige- 
wasset, and thence to Squam, Winnipesaukee and the sea. Along 
this trail many a miserable captive has been carried back to 
Canada to be held for ransom. The second episode is the capture 



60 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

of John Stark, afterward General Stark, as he is trapping with 
three companions on Baker's River in 1752. 

Four hunters cross the meadow looking for their traps. Sud- 
denly perceiving the signs of Indians, they consult anxiously and 
then swiftly retrace their steps. As they disappear, the Indians, 
emerging from every covert, close in on them. There is the 
sound of shots and then of savage cries, and at length the victors 
return, flaunting a bloody scalp and dragging two wretched cap- 
tives, who are forced to run the gauntlet of their tormentors. 
Then, wounded and weary, they are compelled to take up the 
dreaded march to the north. 

It was on his return from this captivity that John Stark made 
a favorable report of the North Country to the General Court, 
which voted to send its exploring parties henceforth by way of 
Baker's River. During the next few years frequent expeditions 
passed through this section, and in the early 60 's many towns 
were chartered, — among them, Plymouth. 

To the sound of gay music, the scene changes. Festooned 
wands, borne by lads in white, mark out the limits of a spacious 
hall. We are in Portsmouth where the royal governor holds 
his gay court, and this is the Wentworth Mansion. Governor 
"Wentworth, dignified and courtly. Lady Wentworth, young and 
charming, are receiving their friends with the stately courtesy 
of the day. Gentlemen in velvet and ruffles, ladies in gorgeous 
brocades and powered coiffures, are grouped in a brilliant picture 
as two horsemen ride up, dismount and are presented. They are 
jNIajor Joseph Blanchard of Dunstable and David Hobart of 
Hollis, come to receive the charter of a new town at the junction 
of Baker 's River and the Pemigewasset. The governor summons 
his clerk, maps are consulted and papers examined, while the 
gallants and ladies, a little withdrawn, look on to see how New 
England history is made. At length the work is completed. The 
signatures of Benning Wentworth, governor of the Province of 
New Hampshire under His Majesty, George the Third, and of 
Theodore Atkinson, secretary of state, are affixed, and on the 
15th of July, 1763, the toAvn of Plymouth comes into existence. 

The gay courtiers vanish and there enter the sober men of 
Hollis, proprietors of the new town. Five months have elapsed 
since the granting of the charter, and on the 20th of December, 
they gather for the drawing of lots which will determine their 







Courtesy of Dalton Studio 

Episode IV. Drawing of the Lots 




Episode V, Coming of the Settlers 



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CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 61 

homes in Plymouth. Anxiously they bend over the map on 
which the surveyors have marked off the sections of land, four 
of wliicli, two of intervale and two of upland, will fall to each 
settler. Three men, in recognition of special services, are per- 
mitted to choose first, and then the drawing begins. Daniel 
Emerson, standing at one end of the long table, draws from a 
great bowl a slip from which he reads the name. At the other 
end of the table, Samuel Willoughby reads from a similar slip 
the number of a section. One by one, as their names are called, 
the goodmen hasten forward to the map, and then fall back to 
their places, some of them elated at good fortune, to receive the 
congratulations of their friends, and some resigned to a less for- 
tunate choice. All submit except one sturdy young farmer, 
Jotham Cummings, who vigorously protests. Excited discussion 
follows and at length he is sustained by the surveyors, who 
admit, as the records of the meeting show, that his lot is ' ' not fit 
to settle on," When they separate they are discussing plans for 
the journey over the rough trail from Hollis to Plymouth. 

No scene of the pageant appealed more strongly to the imagi- 
nation of the spectators than the Coming of the Settlers. Many 
who looked on were direct descendants of the brave and pious 
folk represented in the scene. First appear two horsemen mak- 
ing their way slowly along the forest path. Then come a group 
of settlers, the women riding with their children before them, and 
their few household goods hanging from the saddle bow, while 
husbands and sons tramp sturdily by the horses ' sides. At length 
the great oxteams come laboring in, bringing whole families. 
David Webster is the first man to take an oxteam through to 
Plymouth, where he waits the coming of his wife. She follows 
him, riding on horseback with her young child, and when she 
arrives she has an exciting tale to tell, of her night spent near 
the trail in Bridgewater in full view of an Indian encampment. 
Finally, the black-robed figure of Parson Nathan Ward appears, 
and as he lifts his hand, all fall upon their knees, for these are 
a God-fearing people, and even before lea\dng Hollis, have en- 
gaged Rev. Mr. Ward of Newtowne as minister of the new 
church. 

Such an outdoor meeting as that of Episode VI must often 
have been held before the little log meeting house at the foot of 
the hill was completed. The solemn notes of the old tunes echo 



62 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

through the forest paths as the chorister lines out the hynms and 
the people devoutly follow, — 

' ' Sweet is the work, my God, my King, 
To praise thy name, give thanks and sing." 

Parson "Ward, who is to remain for almost thirty years, the shep- 
herd of this flock, prays, exliorts and warns. Then, as the chil- 
dren gather in a semi-circle, he hears their catechism and psalms. 

Into this scene has also been woven a bit of later history. 
Plymouth, like many New Hampshire towns, was rent by dis- 
sensions between the orthodox church and the Baptists, who re- 
fused to be taxed for the maintenance of a church to which they 
did not conform. Fortunately for the town, both minister and 
people were wisely tolerant and a compromise was agreed upon. 
At the close of the episode the dissenters are seen paying their 
arrears of taxes, but on condition that no more be demanded. 

The quiet melody of a charming old English air brings in the 
next scene. "While the men of Plymouth are settling affairs of 
church and state, their good wives are busy at home. Now they 
meet for a quilting, and as they bend over the quilting-frames, 
they laugh and chat of neighborhood news. A flax wheel hums 
busily under the skilful hand of the housewife who sits before it, 
and at one side a graceful girl, erect beside a tall wool wheel, 
advances and retreats as her great wheel whirls, now fast, now 
slow. Their merriment is not checked as a doctor's gig drives 
up, for this is Dr. John Rogers who for many years shared with 
Parson "Ward the especial regard of the community. The gig 
used in this scene is more than a century old and is now owned 
by the Rev. Austin Garver. A little later appears a two-wheeled 
chaise, and a young buck, alighting, carries off the fair spinner 
for a drive. This chaise, also very old, was the property of the 
Ward family. 

Something of pageant license must be granted to the following 
episode. It is 1772. The young governor, John "Wentworth, with 
a gay party from Portsmouth comes riding over the new ' ' college 
road" on his way to Dartmouth commencement. He is known 
for his love of display and lavish entertainment, — known, too, 
for his devotion to his beautiful young wife in whose honor he 
has named two New Hampshire towns, Deering and Francestown. 
Plymouth greets him with her best hospitality, and if the scene 




Photo by Dalton Studio 

Episode VIII. Lady Wentworth, Miss Blanche A. Gould 








Photo bj- Dalton Studio 

Episode XIII. Reception and Dance 




EPI80DK VII. Dr. John Ro(iEKs, Dk. Austin S. Garver 




Episode VII. Old Customs 



Episode XL Muster Scene 




].ii.-...uE X. Arriv.\l oi' Student 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 63 

is somewhat more characteristic of Portsmouth than of the new 
settlement, the beauty of the picture is ample excuse. 

To the stately measures of a minuet, the guests assemble. 
Lady Wentworth is borne in in her sedan chair, the governor 
walking devotedly at her side. With gracious condescension 
they receive the welcome of their host and hostess, and the 
homage of the guests, and then look on at a charming little contra 
dance. It is a gay scene as the graceful line of dancers advances 
and retreats, the gallants bow with profound deference, and the 
ladies sink low in demure courtesies. 

The stirring strains of a martial air warn us that the piping 
times of peace are past and that we are in the midst of the 
Revolution. Plymouth, with other New Hampshire towns, is 
living in dread of Burgoyne and his savage allies who are march- 
ing south from Canada. As a horseman dashes down the road 
and pulls up at the village green, an eager crowd gather and 
learn that the enemy are threatening Bennington where the 
Continental supplies are stored. Vermont sends a frantic ap- 
peal for help. General Schuyler has fallen back in weak dismay 
and General Stark with his New Hampshire farmers is their only 
hope. Plymouth has already sent her share of men to the front, 
but she rises to the new need. Drum and bugle summon the 
townsfolk and a little company is hurriedly fitted out. Men tear 
themselves away from their anxious wives, boys leave their 
mothers and sweethearts in tears, as the little band march hastily 
away to join Stark's command, while the women and children, 
excited and tearful, follow them with prayers and farewells. 
The stirring appeal, the instant response, give the very spirit 
of '76. 

And now more than a quarter of a century passes. The Revo- 
lution is a memory and years of quiet growth show us a new 
Plymouth. With cracking of whips and sounding of horn the 
stage-coach comes rattling into town, its four horses rearing and 
plunging at the shouts and laughter of the merry crowd it brings. 
As the coach stops, they climb down from their places, a quaint 
group of young folk, the girls with queer old-fashioned bonnets 
and long full frocks, the boys in homespun, — for these are a 
party of the students who come to Holmes Academy from New 
Chester, from Cockermouth, from Campton and all the towns 
around. Not even the presence of the prim preceptress who 



64 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

awaits them, book in hand, checks their noisy chatter as they 
wave their good-byes to the stage which rattles off again. 

Now the music breaks into the quick measures of Yankee 
Doodle. Last scene in the little drama of early Plymouth is 
Muster Day. It is the great event of the year, and men and 
boys come tramping in from miles around. The peddlers are 
early on the grounds with trinkets to be purchased for wives and 
children at home. Bakers offer the regular muster-day luncheon, 
hard gingerbread, and venders of all kinds call their wares. The 
harsh cries of the hawkers mingle with the noisy laughter of the 
crowd which wanders aimlessly about, joking, gossiping, trading, 
till the militia appear. Then Colonel "Webster and his aides 
gallop around the field, clearing the ground for the infantry 
drill, and the little band of militia march out. They are a mot- 
ley company, short and tall, stout and thin, all clad in homespun 
but duly accoutred and intent on the day's work. They march 
and countermarch, wheel and file, if not with skill, at least with 
earnestness while the admiring crowd looks on. 

With this episode the series of early Plymouth pictures closed, 
but the most impressive scene of the pageant followed. The 
music passed into the solemn strains of Duke Street : 

' ' Oh God, beneath thy guiding hand. 
Our exiled fathers crossed the sea, 
And when they trod the wintry strand. 

With prayer and psalm they worshipped thee, — 

and as if called back once more for a moment from the shadows 
of the past, the actors in the little drama appeared, — Water- 
nomee and his braves. Captain Baker and his men, explorers, 
scouts, trappers, settlers, soldiers, students, — once more they 
passed in swiftly-moving line to the music of the hymn, 

' ' Laws, freedom, truth and faith in God 
Came with those exiles o'er the waves, 
And where their pilgrim feet have trod, 
The God they trusted guards their graves. 

As the last figure faded into the shadows, there remained a 
final impressive picture, the Plymouth of 1913, — a great audience 
which rose reverently as the hymn closed : 

* ' And here thy name, O God of Love, 
Their children's children shall adore, 
Till these eternal hills remove, 

And spring adorns the earth no more. ' ' 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 65 

MUSIC. 

Instrumental music furnished by Keniston Band. 
Episodes I. and II. Indian Melodies especially arranged for 
these Episodes. 

Episode III. The Queen's Lace Handkerchief Strauss 

Episode V. Federal Street Oliver 

Episode VI. Rockingham Mason 

Sweet is the work, my God, my King, 
To praise thy name, give thanks and sing, 
To show thy love by morning light, 
And talk of all thy truth at night. 

Sweet is the day of sacred rest ; 
No mortal care shall seize my breast ; 
Oh, may my heart in tune be found — 
Like David 's harp of solemn sound ! 

Episode VII. Sweet Content Decker 

Episode VIII. From Don Juan Mozart 

Episode IX. March of the Men of Harlech 

Episode X. The Happy Farmer Schumann 

Episode XI. The most popular air of that period, Yankee 

Doodle. 
Episode XII. Duke Street 



CAST OF CHARACTERS. 

Episode I. 

Waternomee, the Sachem Eugene Peppard 

Captain Thomas Baker William Simonds 

Braves and white men — Leland Atwood, Ernest Bell, Leslie Bell, Eobert 
Chase, Paul Dumm, Morris Dustin, Max Haley, Eaymond Haley, Clarence 
Hatch, Hollis Hurlbert, Harold Sherburne, Alphonse Swenning, Aretas 
Sutherland, Eobert Sutherland, Guy Worthen, Roger Woodman, Charles 
Woodman, Earle Willoughby. 

Squaws — Mrs. Moody P. Gore, Mary Mudgett, Marguerite Weeks, Agnes 
Burke, Ruth Currier, Christine Sutherland, Theo Gould, Alice Lydia Pep- 
pard, Beatrice Tollan. 

Children — Maynard Fosie, Charles Robie, Margaret Pierce, Amasa Avery, 
Jr. 



66 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

Episode II. 

John Stark Leslie Bell 

William Stark William T. Simonds 

David Stinson Earle Willoughby 

Amos Eastman Hollis Hurlbert 

Indians in Episode I. 

Episode III. 

Gov. Benning Wentworth Dr. E. L. Bell 

Lady Wentworth Blanche Gould 

Theodore Atkinson, Secretary of State Herbert Adams 

Clerk John Peppard 

Col. David Hobart Harry Sherwood 

Col. Blanchard Walter B. Adams 

John Fenton Dr. Ellison 

Pages — Eobert Smith and Irving Sherwood. 

Pole bearers — Neil Haley, Charles Bowles, Clarence Bragg, Preston Cur- 
rier, Floyd Carroll, Glee Wilkie. 

Episode IV. 

Moderator A. F. Wentworth 

Clerk Henry Little 

Jotham Cummings George R. Foster 

Voters — Fred Abbott, A. F. Burt, Charles Cook, Irving H. Chase, Fred A. 
Barker, Ernest Hardy, Henry W. Eogers, Frank G. Smith, A. L. Smith, 
Louis Spencer, Iza Smith, H. H. Whittemore, Eaymond Whittemore, T. I. 
Emerson, George Persons. 

Episode V. 

Men of episode IV and other settlers — Ada Allen, Hazel Caldon, Dorothy 
Clark, Mrs. E. G. Currier, Mrs. Ernest Hardy, Charles Hardy, Florence 
Hardy, Mrs. Ina G. Hildreth, Mrs. Henry Little, Marion Flanders, Alice 
Houston, Bernice Houston, Lydia Gore, Mrs. F. H. Foster, Martha H. Fos- 
ter, Arline L. Foster, Alice P. Foster, Mrs. Fred Wilkins, Mrs. John 
Wheeler, Phineas Wheeler, John Wheeler, Jr., Mrs. Alfred Stanley, Mary 
Stanley, Elizabeth Stanley, Freda Stanley, Mrs. Henry W. Eogers, Mrs. 
Fred Abbott, Velna Carroll, Margaret Atwood, Blanche Elizabeth Smith, 
Mrs. Iza Smith, Mrs. E. C. E. Dorion, Pauline Avery, Mrs. Fred Wright, 
Mrs. W. T. Simonds, Earlyan D. Simonds, Eussell W. Simonds, Harold 
Glover and Everett Keniston vtdth oxteams. 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 67 

Episode VI. 

Parson Nathan Ward Rev. B. A. Dumm, Ph. D. 

Leader of tlie Choir Rev. A. L. Smith, D. D. 

All of Episodes IV and V. 

Episode VII. 

Spinners Ella Ahern and Wilhelmina Keniston 

Quilting Bee in charge of Margaret Brown. 

Dr. John Rogers Rev. Austin S. Garver, D. D. 

Josiah Brown Moody P. Gore 

Episode VIII. 

Governor John Wentworth Dr. E. L. Bell 

Lady Wentworth Miss Blanche A. Gould 

Host and Hostess Mr. and Mrs. Fred P. Weeks 

John Fenton Dr. John Ellison 

Contra Dance 

Miss Doris Ayer John Peppard 

Mrs. C. C. Wright J. W. Harrower 

Mrs. A. M. Rand George Greeley 

]\Iiss Ethel Savage Harry Sherwood 

Mrs. W. A. Kimball Herbert Adams 

Miss Miriam Keniston A. M. Rand 

Dorothy Dalton, Mary Elliott, Barbara Gould, Madeline Weeks, Wilhel- 
mina Keniston, Clesen Tenney, Henry W. Eogers, H. H. Whittemore, Eay- 
mond Whittemore, Robert Smith, Irving Sherwood. 

Chair Bearers George Persons and Louis Spencer 

Episode IX. 

Horseman Harry Sherwood 

Bugler Harold Freeman 

Settlers 

Episode X. 
Preceptress Mrs. H. H. Lamson 

Students — Hazel Downing, Mildred Brogan, Lillian Clark, Edna Gadd, 
Marguerite Merrill, Hazel Swett, Archie Spencer, Kenneth Haley, Guy 
Richards, Earl Brown, Hazel Kelley, Thorndike Rubert, Ruth Evans, Caro- 
line Davison, Lida Caldon. 



68 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

Episode XI. 

Col. David Webster, Recruiting Officer Clesen Tenney 

Aids Dr. John Wheeler, Harl Pease 

Fif er and drummer Roger Woodman, Bernard Carroll 

Privates — Fred Cayes, Will Chase, Fred Chase, E. G. Currier, Farley 
Avery, Elmer Huckins, Lester Mitchell, Carl Morrison, Forest Merrill, Iza 
Smith, Orrin Sherburne, Charles Pease. 

Peddlers — Walter Avery, Gordon Clay, Moses A Ferrin. 

Men, Women and Children to view the muster. 

Episode XII. 
Passing of the Pageant with complete cast. 



TUESDAY, JULY 15, 8 P. M. 
BAND CONCERT 

BY 

Keniston Band 
John Keniston, Director. 

Program. 

March— "The New Colonial" Hall 

Waltz— "Old Black Joe" Ascher 

Overture — ' ' Fires of Glory " Rockwell 

Two Step — Indian Intermezzo, ' ' Silver Bell " Wenrich 

Clarinet Solo — "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp" Rollinson 

Carl W. Keniston 
Selection — Anvil Chorus from ' ' U Trovatore. ' ' With Anvils. 

Verdi 

Medley March — "Marching Thro' Georgia" Sargent 

March — "American Republic," introducing "Star Spangled 

Banner ' ' with variations. With Guns Thiele 

Waltz — ' ' Home, Sweet Home " Mergis-Berger 

March — ' ' The Stars and Stripes Forever " Sousa 




High School where Historical Exhibit Was Held, 1903-1914 




1'ahi 111- I'ai.k.wt Ari)ih\< 



'. B. Keniston's Residence 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHRIE. 69 

KENISTON BAND. 

The band which played July 15th was the largest aggregation 
of local band musicians in Plymouth for many years. Twenty- 
nine formed the musical organization in the parade, the pageant 
and evening concert. The picture opposite gives all the band 
men connected with the music of the day. Not every one was a 
member of the Keniston Band, but all the members were in the 
picture except Warner W. Hartwell, who was recovering from 
a very serious illness. 

Seated in the front row are Harry Allard, solo cornet; John 
Cook, solo alto; Edward C. Currier, third alto; Ray D. Arnold, 
second trombone; Ernest W. Glines, bass drum; William O. 
Wheeler, tuba ; Fred H. Brown, cymbals. Second row, Charles 
Hoit, third trombone; Albert T. Robie, first trombone; Harold 
C. Freeman, solo cornet ; Charles H. Shaw and Aretas B. Suth- 
erland, second B flat clarinets; Russell Draper, second cornet. 
Standing, first row, H. Bart Heath, tuba ; Fred Wilkins, second 
alto; Edwin J. Foster (with arms folded) baritone; John Foster, 
a former band player, holding the instrument of his son; Carl 
W. Keniston E flat clarinet; John Keniston, drum major and 
director; Clifton Severance, piccolo; Charles L. Woodman, first 
B flat clarinet ; Robert McC. Chase, second B flat clarinet (he did 
not play on the march as he motored the celebration committee, 
Mr. Shaw substituting for him); Henry Little, first cornet; 
Charles H. Ellison, second cornet. Back row, looking between 
or over the other players, William Hawkins, solo B flat clarinet ; 
Charles Hudson, tenor drum ; Arthur Smythe, first B flat clari- 
net ; D. Brooks Wheeler, second alto ; Lyman Stanley, second B 
flat clarinet ; Charles R. Pease, premier solo cornet ; Roger F. 
Woodman, piccolo. 

This band began practice in September, 1902, in the Athe- 
naeum and played in public the first Tuesday evening in the 
following November. Since then, it has played at all Memorial 
Day exercises and at almost all of the other public occasions in 
this locality. In the summer of 1903 it gave open air concerts 
and in the same year the town appropriated $150 for a band 
stand. The citizens contributed as much more. The band stand 
was designed by Francis V. Bulfinch of Boston, a son of one of 
Plymouth's daughters. This band has given concerts every 



70 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

season since organized for which the town has generously appro- 
priated $100 annually. 

The members have never paid fees but have received a small 
compensation for their services. Messrs. H. Bart Heath, Edwin 
J. Foster, Carl W. Keniston, D. Brooks Wheeler, Albert T. Robie 
and Edward C. Currier were among the first members. This 
band has kept together and practiced especially for this occasion 
for many years. The next celebration will find many changes in 
the group of faces. 

THE FIREWORKS. 

The committee, by the courtesy of the Boston & Maine Railroad 
officials, were enabled to use the lawn of the old Pemigewasset 
House for its firework display. Before sunset the crowd began 
to gather and long before the display commenced, the common 
and the streets surrounding it were packed with an eager and 
good-natured crowd of several thousand from this and surround- 
ing towns. While waiting for darkness to gather, and during 
the display, Keniston band gave a fine concert, which was much 
appreciated by the throng as attested by the continual applause. 

Promptly upon the hour the fireworks began and without the 
slightest break, the attention of the spectators was closely held 
to the end by the magnificent and ever-varying display. The 
absence of long intervals of waiting, which usually detract so 
much from such an exhibition, the good taste shown in the selec- 
tions, and arrangement of the pieces, the unerring skill with 
which they were set off by the fireworks expert furnished by 
Maston & Wells Fireworks Company of Boston, and the numbers 
of special devices, some of them of local significance, united to 
make this display one of the best ever seen in Plymouth. The 
successive novelties filled the spectators with curiosity and sur- 
prise, and the gorgeous combination of light and colors by which 
the sky was constantly illuminated, called forth from the specta- 
tors exclamations of astonishment and delight. 

The display opened by a grand illumination produced by pow- 
erful crimson lights, throwing a brilliant glow over the entire 
surroundings, followed by flights of heavy exhibition rockets, 
candle cascades, golden fountains and colored star bouquets; 
crimson and green lights lighted up the exhibition grounds with 
a brilliant effect. Floating balloon lights were seen high in the 



CELEBRATION OF PLYMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 71 

air, which changed from red to green, sailing away into the night. 
The grande finale consisted of an immense motto in letters of fire : 

Plymouth 
1763—1913. 

with a halo of fire above the design. 

Volleys of shells and bombs were discharged, making a bril- 
liant effect and closing the display. 

When the last sparks expired the one hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary celebration was over and the tired but satisfied 
crowd made its way slowly homeward. 



72 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

FINANCIAL REPORT OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND 
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY COMMITTEE. 

The town, at its annual meeting March 11, 1913, appropriated 
the sum of three hundred dollars, and the committee, realizing 
at its earlier meetings that this sum would not be adequate for a 
celebration that would be a credit to the town, proceeded to ap- 
point special committees to raise, by subscription, sale of anni- 
versary medals, special advertising, etc., an outside sum. This, 
added to the towoi appropriation, was more than enough to meet 
the bills of the celebration and make the final payment on the 
illuminated dials of the town clock, and to assist Asquamchu- 
mauke Chapter towards payment of the setting of its boulder, 
leaving a substantial balance in the Pemigewasset National Bank. 
The financial statement is appended : 

Town appropriation $300 . 00 

Raised by subscription 200 . 00 

Received gift, Mrs. E. W. Fisk 25 . 00 

C. H. Greenleaf 20.00 

Dr. Cyrus Richardson 5 . 00 

from sale of medals 148 . 65 

Pageant sale of seats, pro- 
grammes, lemonade, etc. . . . 108 . 62 

Advertising, mileage, etc 89 . 20 

Returned from clock committee 2 . 14 

$898.61 

Expended by committee on Medals $95 . 91 

Pageant 146.17 

Decoration 8 . 00 

Illustrated lecture . . 43 . 65 

Fireworks 139.01 

Music 80.00 

Printing 100.40 

Taking and transcrib- 
ing speeches 15.00 

Donated to Illuminated Clock committee .... 100 . 00 

Asquamchumauke Chapter 30 . 00 

Balance 140.47 

i.61 



Charles J. Gould^ 

Treasurer. 



